Their Story
1979-1988
Adapted from Introduction of Why Can’t Sharon Kowalski Come Home?
Karen Thompson and Sharon Kowalski, are two women who fell in live and began to share their lives together. After four years of a committed and extremely closeted relationship, Sharon was hit by a drunk driver while driving to northern Minnesota on a cold November afternoon in 1983.
Sharon’s four-year-old niece, Missy, and seven-year-old nephew, Michael, were in the car with her. Missy died shortly after the accident. Michael recovered with a few permanent injuries. Sharon, however, suffered a severe brain stem injury, which left her with drastic and permanent damage. How drastic and how permanent is difficult to assess since it is the contention of Why Can’t Sharon Kowalski Come Home? that Sharon’s recovery was detrimentally affected by the efforts to remove Karen Thompson from her life.
Sharon was initially in a coma and not expected to live. Karen Thompson literally spent every minute she could with Sharon, willing her to live and to recover. Later, Karen spent hours, weeks and months helping Sharon relearn basic movements and skills. When Sharon’s family told Karen to discontinue visitation with Sharon, she sought advice from medical personnel and attorneys. Driven by fear of being separated from her lover, she revealed her relationship to Sharon’s parents, praying that they would see that her love could make a difference in their daughter’s recovery. When they reacted with anger and denial, Karen filed for guardianship, thus initiating a historic legal battle, which had far-reaching effects on disabled people, unmarried partners – regardless of sexual orientation – or any individual without a designated guardian of choice.
1989-present
Insert what happened since then.
