It is with bated breath that I sit here thinking of Renee. I try to breathe in some normal fashion, but it is not easy. How to regain some strength to write when all I feel is the loss of strength that Renee gave me, for all those years. She guided me through my legal, political and personal worlds.
We first met in 1974 at the National Lawyers Guild convention in Boulder, Colo. There was Renee putting together, with her usual political moxie, the first-ever gay caucus seminar at a lawyer’s convention. Only a few people attended, but she started the gay caucus—and we never looked back.
Our bond was immediate. Although I lived in Denver and she in Chicago, by phone and visits, we shared our lives and struggled to turn all around us towards the progressive, the liberationist, the radical, the fairness and goodness in all.
For me, there will never, ever be anyone like Renee. She entered my living plasm and stayed there. I was never the same. She fortified and enlarged my life. She was my best friend and love and was witness to my life’s most productive years, as well as to my heartaches. I would have walked through fire for her. Renee, I will never stop grieving for what once was.
Jerry Gerash