SEATTLE – For Charlene Strong, a lot of pain still lingers after 10 years.
“I can’t get over hearing her voice,” said Strong. “I can wrap my head around a tragedy. I can wrap my head around all of the horrible things that happened afterwards, but I can’t get over her suffering.”
During a 2006 December storm, Strong wanted to be by Kate Fleming’s side. Fleming was pulled from the basement of the Madison Valley home they shared after it filled up with water.
At the hospital, Strong says their relationship was not recognized.
“After 10 years of spending our life together, sharing our home, our faith, our finances, we still had no way to communicate, because of her being unconscious. They were looking at me as a stranger,” said Strong.
She adds that she was not immediately allowed to be by Fleming’s bedside when she was needed the most.
Despite all efforts, Fleming passed away and Strong was confronted again, this time at the funeral home, with the fact that she lacked legal rights. That fueled Strong to fight all the way to Olympia where the Governor signed a new law in 2007.
“It changed exactly what was necessary the night Kate died. Those laws were the ability to make medical decisions. They were the ability to be in the hospital room,” said Strong.
At the Northwest Film Forum Wednesday night, the featured movie was ‘For My Wife.’ Strong is a co-producer on the documentary that focuses on what happened to her and Fleming in December 2006.
Strong applauds the progress, including marriage equality, but she says there is more work to do.
“We saw this last year in the rule making around the sexual orientation and people in the nation being able to use bathrooms that they identify with sexually. And the uproar and the upheaval that that has caused. There’s a lot of fear, but there is not a lot of facts,” said Strong. “Seeing what is going on in this country, it has inspired me to look into running for office for myself.”
