It is absolute human nature to enjoy moments in a present
not thinking that many of those moments will never ever happen again in that
same way.
When my granddaughter Rebecca (now 21) was 8 or 9 and her
sister Lauren (now 16) was 5 they would be dropped off at our large Kerrisdale
home on Saturdays. There would be a knock on the door. I would open the door
and Rebecca (with her sister behind her) would, with a big smile, say to me, “¿Cómo
estás Papi?” They would then scurry through the house straight to the back kitchen
door and run into the garden.
The girls have grown up and Rosemary and I rarely see
them. We are now beginning to understand Rosemary’s mother (who lived in New
Dublin, Ontario) hoping so many years ago for that long-distance-feeling
connection with our daughters via the telephone (when telephones were only
telephones).
Last night we picked up Lauren at her dance and we drove
her to her home in Burnaby. Our daughter Hilary had invited us for dinner and
we knew that Rebecca was going to be there.
It was a pleasure to eat food I had not cooked, and to sit
at a table and be served. But best of all the sharing of dinner with Hilary and
those two who are also dear to our hearts was a moment I will savour.
The lights in Hilary’s house can never compete with those
in my little Kitsilano studio. And daylight had been long gone.
I persuaded Lauren and Rebecca to pose for me in the
kitchen. What you see is the best I could do with the circumstances. But I will not
attempt to hide my pleasure in enjoying the photographs taken.