Jane Lavender and Hudson Giles-Lavender have been together for decades and were legally married in 2015.
They spoke about how they find joy and happiness – even in the face of negativity and political uncertainty.
Alphabet Soup shares LGBTQ+ Missourians’ stories through portraiture and personal narratives.
Jane Lavender: Our life is so rich, so full – so full, so many blessings. Our mom, my mom, is living with us half of the year kind of scenario.
We have grandkids. One's in town – very, very much in our lives. The other moved to New York with his parents.
Hudson Giles-Lavender: He moved to Brooklyn. He says, “I'm going to Book-lyn.”
Laughter
Jane Lavender: Yeah.
Awesome friends, friends I've had for decades, and living in this beautiful, wonderful community, and just feeling so blessed.
And I have a wonderful job and great coworkers, and, you know, on the day-to-day, I'm a very happy person.
Hudson Giles-Lavender: She is. She's one of the happiest people I know, which is helpful because I can be very pessimistic, and I have to work on bringing my joy up.
And there's lots of reasons to do that – but as I said earlier, there's lots of reasons to be afraid.
Not only am I a lesbian – an out lesbian, but I am African American woman, I'm a woman of size – there's all kinds of oppressive things that fold upon who I am as a person.
And so, I – we both develop practices to try to keep our spirits lifted, you know, because we know how important it is, but it's not always easy.
But sure it's fun. Jane and I – we both have really good sense of humor
Jane Lavender: Mhmm.
Hudson Giles-Lavender: And do very odd funny things around each other regularly out of the blue.
Laughter
And, you know, we just know how to we just know how to bring that energy into our home
Jane Lavender: Yeah
Hudson Giles-Lavender: – and into our lives. Our kids – very funny people. [We] like to do karaoke with them sometimes as a family. So fun.
We have a lot of family meals together. We live right by the trail, lots of walks, and Jane has discovered pickleball, and I'm kind of hanging out on that rim with her some.
So we have all kinds of ways to have fun, and Zuli, our granddaughter – I can say her name. Her name is Zuli Blue. Beautiful name, right?
She's a huge part of what keeps me lifted even when I feel some of the woes, I look at her and again, young people, young people and their ability to bring hope, keep hope alive.
![Willow Wilson sits on a chair in her living room on Friday, April 5, 2024, at her apartment in Columbia. When Wilson was selecting her name, she said she originally had nearly 100 names to choose from on a Word document. For a while, Wilson said she almost committed to the name “Rumor” because it had a “cool, sultry” and “femme fatale” feel. “But I eventually settled on the Willow just because I think Willow Wilson is such a distinctive name,” Wilson said. “It's kind of like [a] Peter Parker, Clark Kent kind of vibe. … Not to sound too egotistical, but that is a very main character name, and I kind of liked that. And I liked that it was very earthy and crunchy and kind of, you know, hippie, a little bit. So, I think Willow was kind of like, where I was like, ‘Yeah, I like that: Willow Wilson.’ That definitely sounds like a lady who's about town and making the most of her life.”](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/7f71366/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1750x1158+0+0/resize/260x172!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F41%2F05%2F730cbb9e4211a4e6e37f185c7caf%2F20240405-bas-queer-joy-willow-wilson-0019.jpg)
