La  Recoleta - Buenos Aires

Thanks to Darwin we understand that one of the primary roles of any species lies in the continuity of preservation. Epicurus said we fear death but because there is no pain in it, there is no reason to fear it. When my philosophy professor in Mexico City, Ramón Xirau told us that in class it felt logical.

Because of Darwin we know that we reproduce and have offspring so as to preserve our DNA. Suicide goes against the grain of self-preservation so it shocks us when we are exposed to it.

The death of my Rosemary and our mutual and believed knowledge that we will never meet again and that our 52 years are all we were going to get has me suddenly feeling that much closer to death.

Because of Epicurus, at night, I try to think about not being. I am unable to grasp that concept because it is against my Darwinian principle that I have to live on and will live on. Perhaps there is some hardy human out there who can circumvent that. Perhaps when Rosemary in the middle of the night told me, "I don't want to be here," was almost there. We cannot surmise what it feels like to know you are dying. Perhaps it is such an exceptional occurrence that the dying person has no words to explain it. And we must wait for our own death to find out about that truth that cannot be shared.

As I navigate my grief and the almost-all-the-time awareness of her not being (in that Epicurean sense of the word) I revel that I am ever so lucky to be alive and to have pleasant feelings. There are four reasons.

Rosemary and I decided (did we luck out?) to have two daughters instead of two sons. During this whole ordeal in which sometimes I have been selfishly aware that our two daughters lost their mother and that I am not the only one to grieve, I get support and cheerful help from them. They have been teaching me to sort out the garbage and to pay my bills. They call every day to ask how I am.

The other two reasons are our two brother and sister cats, Niño and Niña. They cling for attention constantly .The idea of showing tenderness towards them is only a small measure of what it was when I did so with Rosemary. But it helps. Today Thursday, January 7, 2021 I took Niño for a walk around the block. This was the first time he walked (he gallivants on his own after breakfast every day) with me. His last walk may have been sometime, mid-November before his mistress was unable to walk.

It felt good. But that presence, not around, makes me think that the best I ever had has been had and the loneliness of my future will only end with Thanatos. 

Is there any solace in knowing that it will not be painful?

My little bird - Rosemary

The curious banality of death

 If God were a woman

 My Rosemary & Leibniz and Newton

Ashes denote that Fire Was  

 My Rosemary - the Decider in Chief

 Who will be first? She was

Who Will Be First?  May 18, 2013 

 My Rosemary the Hoarder

My Rosemary is no more

Smelling behind the ears

On the  same wings, these two can fly 

My Rosemary's nine beds

Esa rubia en especial  

Deo gratias

La Boca in Buenos Aires - Sept 2019

When I first met Rosemary in the waning days of 1967 people who knew her told me she ate “como un pajarito”. It was not until we moved to Vancouver in 1975 that I found out that there was such a thing as an eating disorder or that I was dyslexic!

So in our 52 years together I had to coax and trick her to eat. If you piled stuff on her plate she would

The curious banality of death

 If God were a woman

 My Rosemary & Leibniz and Newton

Ashes denote that Fire Was  

 My Rosemary - the Decider in Chief

 Who will be first? She was

Who Will Be First?  May 18, 2013 

 My Rosemary the Hoarder

My Rosemary is no more

Smelling behind the ears

On the  same wings, these two can fly 

My Rosemary's nine beds

Esa rubia en especial  

Deo gratias

Now  that she is gone I have the questionable and upsetting ability to eat what I want and not what she would have eaten. I can eat steaks (I am an Argentine) but my desire for meat is greatly diminished. 

What did Rosemary eat? There were a few things she adored and in her last three months of life she had that woman’s “I am pregnant” food desires so she would say, “I want to eat papaya." (at 3 in the morning) - or a tomato sandwich. We both liked unsalted, cultural butter.

Rosemary liked, Manila mangoes, Mexican rice with a fried egg on top, ditto on mashed potatoes, my barbecued hamburgers, ditto hot dogs, Bonne Maman strawberry jam, Nestlé Quick, many spoonfuls  (she would stir the mixture with a spoon and make a noise close to that of chalk on a blackboard. She knew it annoyed me so this was one very rare trait of her little cruelty!), Yorkshire pudding (she was famous for it), her flan with a spoonful of Nestle Nescafe and lots of burnt sugar syrup. The biggest smile would happen in our Merida hotel or  in any other.

ny other Mexican hotel when she faced papaya for breakfast.

Rosemary made delicious pineapple squares that we served when we had an open garden. It was only after about 45 years together that she told me that she really did not like my special cucumber sandwiches (English style) that I served at those garden openings.

While I loved asparagus she did not care for them. But Brussels Sprouts she liked while I passed on them.

She tolerated my homemade pizza.

The high point of our day for at least 25 years was our breakfast in bed with our cats. We had the NY Times and the Vancouver Sun to read. In our tray for her she had toast with her Bonne Maman strawberry jam. She would drink her terrible Decaf which I made in a French press. She said that my orange juice was too acid but when I served freshly made apple juice she liked it. For the first ten years we had bacon for breakfast. This custom began to slow down as we felt we needed to eat healthier. But occasional she would manage a couple of my very crisp bacon. What really made her happy was when I prepared hot cream of wheat with brown sugar. I am sure she suspected that I put in my 2% milk not her 1% and sometimes added cream.

In the middle of those “pregnant desire” nights she would go down for peanut butter and crackers.

There was one custom of hers to which I had mixed feelings. She always wanted to try what I was eating when we went to restaurants. But in the end if she was willing to eat anything I let her try.

Rosemary liked my Mexican cooking. She had a fondness for quesadillas made from wheat tortillas and with the strong Gruyere I used. She liked my Mexican salsa but I had to make two batches one had Serrano chiles the other did not.

Our fave quick dessert was the Argentine quince jelly called dulce the membrillo which we sandwiched with that Gruyere or a cheddar.

Presently in this rainy January melancholy I am trying to finish eating anything that Rosemary might have bought. Will I be able to not connect anything I may eat for the rest of my life?

I doubt it. And yes she liked Fanta and that is what she is holding in that bar in La Boca.

Burnaby - Springer Ave - 1975

For me New Year’s has always been a bittersweet event. I never did like going out and then to be suddenly embraced by perfect strangers. And I don’t drink.

Rosemary & Alexandra Elizabeth - New Year's Veracuz 1968

Rosemary had adopted, since I can remember being together, the idea of eating twelve grapes before the clock struck 12. This was a Spanish custom in my family. This year I did not have the heart to do this in the solitude of my Kits home accompanied by Niño and Niña.

But I can remember at least two most memorable New Year’s. They were our first, ones, one in 1967 and the other in 1968. In the latter our new Alexandra Elizabeth was with us.

Those first two New Year’s we spent in the port city of Veracruz where my mother in her house on Navegantes taught school to the children of the employees of Alcoa Aluminum who had their headquarters in the city.

In that first 1967 New Year’s it was not our first time there. We had been there before, and if I count back, 9 months from Ale’s birthday in August 1968, surely she was engendered in some hot night in Veracruz where I had carefully oiled the hinges of our two separate bedrooms.

New Year’s in Veracruz, with the hospitality of my mother who adored Rosemary, was a pleasure. Rosemary never did adapt to the humid heat of the port city and took various showers during the day. But I remember those evening walks on the Malecón (Spanish for a seaside boulevard) holding hands and smelling that curiously almost pleasant smell of humidity, the sea, bunker oil and fish. All I could do was to stare at Rosemary’s face and think how lucky I was to have that blonde all to myself.

And of course at midnight nothing beats the sounding of the ship’s sirens. Because we lived in the altitude of Mexico City it was  startling to wake up on January 1 to the louder noises that happen when at sea level there is more oxygen.

In that  1968 New Year’s Eve when Ale was four month old we might have taken her on her first Veracruz tram ride. She might have sat with us as we sipped the famous jarocho (Mexican Spanish for of or from Veracuz) coffee called a “lechero” at the Parroquia on the Zócalo. This notable corner coffee and restaurant establishment was tiled in white (it almost felt like you were in a bathroom) with large overhead fans. But we opted for the portales outside where the marimbas played and you could hear the clanging of the trams and smell the sweet exhaust of the liquid gas-powered (all made mostly of wood) buses.

The curious banality of death

 If God were a woman

 My Rosemary & Leibniz and Newton

Ashes denote that Fire Was  

 My Rosemary - the Decider in Chief

 Who will be first? She was

Who Will Be First?  May 18, 2013 

 My Rosemary the Hoarder

My Rosemary is no more

Smelling behind the ears

On the  same wings, these two can fly 

My Rosemary's nine beds

Esa rubia en especial  

Deo gratias

In spite of all those cold Vancouver New Year’s Eves my memory of the evening has always been of humidity and heat and of holding hands.

With the death of Rosemary on December 9 there have been few events since then that have in any way helped me forget that she is not around. But there was one happy incident which I will write about here so I can finish this 2020 in an almost positive note that the next year will bring some needed joy in what is left of my now unshared existence.

I wrote this blog in which I included a lovely Polaroid SX-70 snap that I took of her in 1975 when we had just moved to our house in Burnaby (Springer Ave). As things go I noticed that the photograph was luminously beautiful. But I could not find the original. I asked Ale I Lillooet. I looked into all our family albums and in those files of family photographs that are currently in disarray in our (my) dining room.

I was desparate as the scan that I had was in very low resolution. I looked everywhere. Then I went to a large armoire in our piano room. There was nothing in the drawers. I opened the double doors where there are some Mexican dresses. On the floor there was the Polaroid staring right at me.

Such joy!

“La gente que se da citas precisas es la misma que necesita papel rayado para escribirse o que aprieta desde abajo el tubo del dentífrico” Julio Cortázar – Rayuela

“That people who make precise dates are the same kind who need lines on their writing paper, or who always squeeze up from the bottom on a tube of toothpaste.” Julio Cortázar - Hopscotch

Death in the 21st century I am sure is no different from others. And yet.

In the other century when someone in the family died you called up your other family and friends and then you put an obituary in the local paper. People would then mail sympathy cards. I have received many in the last couple of weeks since the death of my Rosemary. But the cards and emails have come for a 21st century reason.

What surely makes death be seen in another light or facet is the role of social media and in my case my posting of my blog in social media. When I saw what was coming I began to write blogs that describe the process of my Rosemary’s going away in a subtle manner so that few would guess outright what was happening.

Her death was an ordeal (surely to her) but to my two daughters and granddaughters, and of course me. I must write here that the writing of it all has given me solace in an understanding as I tried to put what I was feeling and thinking into words.

When my Rosemary died, not too many minutes later, I photographed her hand on Niña the cat (her cat, my cat, our cat).

It has been difficult for me to change from saying or writing “our” daughters, cats, house, etc to the singular “my”.

But what has been more difficult is the slow removing of stuff that reminds me of her that makes it painful for me to live alone in a house with two clingy cats,

I believe that they quickly forget of situations but understand that they now only have one human to attach to. And this they do. And this is calming and soothing. I don’t feel completely alone.

Removing that stuff is the difficult task. Her hearing aids went to a friend of my daughter Ale in Lillooet. I keep finding the little batteries for them everywhere and I must take them to London Drugs. My daughter Hilary will come on Saturday to sift through our bathroom drawers to remove all the medicines that are not needed.

I have been emptying the fridge since December 9, the date of my Rosemary’s passing. My daughter Ale and I thought of all kinds of food that we thought Rosemary might want. There was soft white bread, cut up melon, mango sorbet, Orange Crush and lots more. I have been eating it and have had to throw mouldy bread away. What am I to do with the Nestle Quick she mixed I heaps with her 1% milk? She would stir the mixture in a mug with a spoon and make a noise close to that of chalk on a blackboard. I hated the noise. I miss it now. What am I to do with the decaf coffee grounds she stopped drinking months ago? A curious quirk of her sickness was that strange female-pregnant desire to eat stuff for one day or two and then no more. How were Ale and I to know that a cancer of a liver (among the many things wrong with Rosemary) would not make her want to eat anything? In the last three days, Coke and ice was all she would consume.

 If God were a woman

 My Rosemary & Leibniz and Newton

Ashes denote that Fire Was  

 My Rosemary - the Decider in Chief

 Who will be first? She was

Who Will Be First?  May 18, 2013 

 My Rosemary the Hoarder

My Rosemary is no more

Smelling behind the ears

On the  same wings, these two can fly 

My Rosemary's nine beds

Esa rubia en especial  

Deo gratias

Today I washed the sheets and pillow cases. I had changed them after Rosemary died. But there were death stains on the mattress cover. I washed it twice. Is this a remnant of her death, a presence that I have obliterated?

In the scan here you see the empty Kleenex box. She kept them and would fill them with cheap boxed Kleenex. The tube of toothpaste, she purchased all our toiletries. Once this one is used up I will have to suddenly buy toothpaste for myself. The kitty litter odour eater ran out last night. I emptied the kitty litter (Tuesday, tomorrow is when the garbage is collected) and bought the Arm & Hammer at the Bosley’s around the corner. I have learned to take out the garbage and my daughter Ale is going to slowly teach me how to pay bills.

Cooking is now a tad easier. I can eat what Rosemary did not want to eat. My food bill will be a more frugal one as opposed to “our” food bill.

Traveling, when that happens, will be complex. I worked with a travel agency called Rosemary Elizabeth Waterhouse-Hayward

Rosemary had a thing for paper napkins. There were at least three kinds with a Christmas theme. The one here is what we used for our Christmas Eve dinner (photographs to put in a blog soon!).

And yes I was never able to convince her in our 52 year marriage that you had to squeeze the toothpaste from the bottom. She was obstinate and that was one more reason why I loved her.