#write your will

She was killed in a robbery that went wrong. After several days in the ICU on life support, her organs were donated to the benefit of over 70 people.

Jen continued to organize, lead, and love even as she was brain dead, and even after she died. I say this because Jen did what so few of us do: she planned what would happen if she died. She had a living will that stated her wishes clearly and that explained who would be tasked with making the most awful of decisions. She had a will that defined what to do with her assets and who would execute her affairs. She made sure the people she was bound to were seen, legally recognized, and cared for as well as she was able. Doing so in a will ensured that the law’s definition of ‘who mattered’ didn’t matter at all.

I am writing about this here, in this community, because Jen’s death taught me so much about queer love in the afterlife. Jen loved deeply and widely. Her relationships were unconventional. She was a central node of her polyamorous community. Her partners were connected to her in a multitude of ways, none of which the law or society are equipped to respect. By writing a will and a living will, she made sure that all the people she loved would be seen, not just by the law, but by the community of bereaved, as people who had suffered an unbearable and unimaginable loss.

So, as a small gesture to honour the splendor of Jen’s life, cruelly cut short, I am on here tonight asking you all to write a will; asking you to think about being organ donor if you can; asking you to think about who needs to decide what happens to you if you can’t decide for yourself; asking you think about what kind of support your loved ones will need to be able to walk that path and make sure they know how to reach each other.

You’ll say: But i’m young ... But i don’t have children ... But I don’t own a house ... But I am close to penniless. Jen was all those things. And yet she thought of how the people she loved would face that unthinkable day, and she decided to love them, even then, even after, so they would be seen the way she saw them.

i was going to tag this #notyoungroyals but i frankly can’t think of anything more Young Royals than a traumatic death throwing all your relationships into new light, and some people being taken to count more than others.