Some photos from that day.

Love & Marriage

Mark and I got married on Saturday May 4, 2019.  Above is what we wore, Star Trek Discovery captain's outfits since we both were military officers once upon a time.

In 1994, I wrote this passage in Volume One, A Mile-High Saga:

"Greg occasionally wonders if he might ever have the opportunity to lift himself up above his current existence and look at the entire span of his life.  Would he, in fact, be viewing a complex maze, one with several, built-in possibilities that he'd never noticed or allowed himself to consider?  Or would he see but a single path possible, circuitous perhaps, but puzzling only in its direct simplicity, like some grand connect-the-dots drawing?  And what kind of picture would his life's efforts reveal when all of the dots are conjoined?

"Right now, however, to him the image seems incomplete, unfulfilled.  Several dots must still be out there, lying unconnected, he believes, waiting for him to find the junction."

This is what I wrote to say to, and about, Mark during the ceremony at our house:


In the first volume in my own series of novels, the main character is lost.  He knows where he has been, but he has no idea where he’s going after so much in his previous life was broken.  His life also feels incomplete and unfinished, like a connect-the-dots drawing that has not been fully mapped out.  That was 1994.  On July 16, 2012, I met Mark.  It was he who found and connected the remaining dots, completing my life and making me whole for the very first time.


In my favorite series of novels by Armistead Maupin, Tales of the City, the character of Mona created a law:  Mona’s Law states that “You can have a hot lover, a hot job and a hot apartment, but you can’t have all three at the same time.”  However, meeting Mark--for me--broke Mona’s law.   Since Mark came into my life, I have had it all. 

In my favorite poem, The Mind Reader by Richard Wilbur, the main character notes that “Some things are truly lost.”  When I met Mark, everything was truly found.  Together, we have discovered a loving place we call home. 


I am now where I belong, with the man I love.  At long last I am happy--all because of Mark, the kindest, the most sincere and loving human being I have ever known.

For those of you here today, and those of you who could not be here in person but whose thoughts, we know, are with us on this occasion, you have made this day special, the best day of our lives. 

So, it took nearly two decades, twenty years of my life, a momentous Supreme Court decision by one vote, and what only seemed circuitous, to reach the place where I was meant to be, to stand beside the man I was supposed to stand with.

In those Launch Control Facilities under North Dakota where I served with the Air Force, and especially when I was forced to resign from the Air Force Academy when they learned that I was gay, I never could have imagined that I could finally marry the man I loved and wished to spend the rest of my life with.  As Mark was aboard a naval destroyer in the North Atlantic, he never could have imagined that he could marry either.

I was born in Florida in 1949, the folks then moved to Georgia for about six months, then on to California.  We lived in Victorville, Santa Ana, Whittier and Orange, CA, in the 1950's and very early 1960's.  South Gate, CA, in the 1960's.  Then I entered the service in 1973 where I was stationed in Minot, ND, then Colorado Springs in 1978.  After I was forced to resign, I stayed in the Springs until 1991 when I started working as a contractor for IBM and moved to Denver where I eventually met Mark in 2012.

Where was Mark for part of that time?  He was born in Colorado in 1970.  His family moved to California but then back to Colorado.  He joined the Navy but returned to Colorado when his father's health turned bad.  He spent a year in Phoenix, AZ, but came back to Colorado once again.  We met online.

After we met, we used to visit my sister and my best friend and his partner in Southern California, and also my aunt in Northern California.  Both of us were tired of the increasing traffic and continuing winters of Colorado.  California was calling us back and, almost magically, the new house we fell in love with in October of 2015 was still available--with additional incentives--in February of 2016 when we were able to put in an offer to buy it.  The neon directional lights of life were telling us where to move and when to make that move.  We began to move in three years ago, in early May of 2016.  I moved in for good in June of that year.  Mark was able to join me in August.  The many dots of our lives became fully interconnected, and we were home at last.  Together.