This is a local blog that I hadn't seen before I ran across the following heartbreaking account in the Edmonton Vue:

“I feel like a failure for not holding her hand. For Lisa, who was the love of my life, my soulmate, who I miss every day. But I’m finding the strength to speak out so this does not have to happen to any other family. What happened to us was very wrong. We knew sign language, we could have at least signed in her hand while she could have felt it. And we didn’t get to do that.”

Janice Langbehn was speaking about the immeasurable pain she felt after her partner died in a Florida hospital room that she and the couple’s three kids weren’t allowed to enter. Lisa Pond suffered a brain aneurysm while the family was on a cruise ship and was taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. The family was denied visitation even after having legal and medical documents faxed from their home in Olympia, Washington.

Langbehn was denied entry immediately after arriving at the hospital when a social worker approached to tell her she was in an “anti-gay city and state” and had no rights there. She pleaded with staff for hours and was only allowed entry for a few minutes when she and a chaplain gave Pond her last rites. She tried to gain access for her children so they could also say their goodbyes, but all were refused. It took five hours for Pond to pass away while her family stood outside. Langbehn was only finally recognized as Pond’s partner when it was time to take Pond off life support.

The couple were together for 17 years and raised 27 foster and adopted children together. A model family who had the misfortune of one mother finding herself gravely ill in the wrong city, Langbehn’s story is a heartbreaking reminder of still-prevalent inequality. She maintains a blog, rwavesofchange.com, about the ordeal.

Check out the blog at R Waves of Change. You can read about the lawsuit filed by Lambda Legal on behalf of the family here.