Charlene Strong, a Mississippi native, helped resettle her mother, brother and sister-in-law in Seattle after Hurricane Katrina destroyed their Pass Christian home in 2005. In the month since her partner died, Strong is still trying to make sense of it all.
Charlene met Kate Fleming, her partner of 10 years, at the Pet Project, an organization that cares for pets of people with AIDS. Strong ran the pet clinic and was in need of volunteers when she and Fleming met. The women, who were married in a commitment ceremony in the back yard of Fleming's parents' house in Virginia, shared their Catholic faith and love of animals.
Charlene was on her way home in a pounding Seattle winter storm when the call came from her partner, Kate. Sounding stressed, Kate told her that a rain was flooding down a hillside and into the couple's basement, where Fleming, an audiobook narrator, was at work in her recording studio. What happened over the next half hour cost Kate her life and changed Charlene's forever.
As the rain poured down, a flood of water cascaded down the slope in their wooded neighborhood and into the house. The basement began filling with water. Fleming called again a few minutes later to say that she was stuck in the windowless studio, with water rising rapidly. Something, Kate said, must have fallen and blocked the door.
As water poured into the basement recording studio in their small cottage home, Kate ran down the stairs to save her recording equipment and became trapped. Strong tried in vain to rescue her partner, who was under water for 15 minutes before firefighters cut a hole through the bedroom floor and pulled her out. She died later at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle with Strong by her side.
If Charlene had been her legal spouse, the decisions that came next would have been made quickly, albeit painfully. But Strong was initially denied the right to visit Kate in the hospital as she lay dying. When asked what relationship she had to Kate, Strong told the truth, unwilling to lie and say they were sisters.
"I did everything I could to get my family here but I couldn't save Kate," she said. "I was trying to get her out of the basement and I couldn't get her out."
"I will never meet anyone like her again in my life and I know that," Strong said. "That's what saddens me."
"A social worker called Kate's sister to get approval for me to be back there," she said. "Once I was allowed back, the hospital was amazing. They never denied me the ability to make decisions about whether they should continue to perform CPR or let her go."
Things were not easier at the funeral home, where Charlene was unable to legally approve the cremation request. Strong then found that her homeowner's insurance refused to honor her claim because the house was involved in a flood. She does have a few rights, including right of survivorship on the house and a life insurance policy on Kate, but she is also stuck paying off a mortgage on a house that was destroyed.
"Two weeks before she died we were talking about making a will," Charlene said. "She said what kind of funeral Mass she wanted and that she wanted half of her ashes with me and half buried by her father in Alexandria. In terms of having our ducks in a row, we were working on that. That's what we were going to give each other for Christmas."
Charlene, who manages a dental practice and is studying interior design at Bellevue Community College, said she wants to follow Kate's example and be a "calm voice in the world." She also wants to work to advance the cause of gay rights in the state.
