Rosemary's daffodil, Anemone blanda and Camellia x williamsii 'Donation'  - 1 April 2023

I have written many times of the Indigenous belief that if one survives winter and is alive in spring that another year of live is in the making.

My Rosemary died on 9 December 2020.

Even if one is a lapsed Roman Catholic (and I will not reveal here if I may be one) spring always is attached to the idea of renewal and resurrection.

Because I was taught well (extremely so) in Roman Catholic Doctrine by Brother Edwin Reggio, C.S.C. at St. Edward’s High School in Austin, Texas. I can write here that when the Pope sits down on the chair of St. Peter, the term used is “ex cathedra” whatever the pope then says you have to believe under the pain of eternal damnation.  Luckily for many who might worry the pope does not often sit on that lofty throne.

Brother Edwin also taught us philosophy beginning with Aristotle and then telling us of two saints who are also considered philosophers, St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas.

In 1950 Pope Pius XII said Ex Cathedra that the Virgin Mary went to heaven in both body in soul.

This makes me smile as I suppose some lucky soul going to heaven after a good life will be in a place full of spirits, that by being incorporeal are all invisible. But in that lovely emptiness our good soul would spot a woman dressed in blue sitting on a chair.

I do not think that I could explain this philosophically at all!

Spring in my Kitsilano garden is a garden in which a few roses do not come back and some perennials insist that they are annuals and do not greet me at all. A garden is really a body resurrected. In it I see the hand of my Rosemary cleaning it and telling me with a smile how this plant came back as did this other one.

For me then, the spring garden, while being a pleasure to behold, is one of grief of one who did not resurrect and come back.

It is very human to think that why it is that Rosemary’s favourite Camellia x williamsii ‘Donation’ is back in bloom and she is not able to tell me how happy she is that it came back from the cold winter.

Her little blue Anemone blandas are all in up in our lane garden and her daffodils brighten up the cloudy and rainy days.

I lift up my heart, sursum corda, Rosemary (the one in my memory).