Rosemary Waterhouse-Hayward & Filomena de Irureta Goyena de Hayward with our daughter Ale in Veracruz 1968

 Touched in my memory

In praise of a Jewish mother

There are next to no people that I know who knew my mother. One of them was that other mother, my wife Rosemary.

They first met, before I married Rosemary in Veracruz,  around Christmas 1967. From that point on they became the best of friends and there never was that idea that my mother was on of “those” mothers-in-law.

In 1972 my mother died in bed in our home in Arboledas, Estado de México. Rosemary and I both heard her breathe in and then not breathe out. In one of those strange Mexican happenings, we could not find a doctor nearby so a veterinarian came over and said, “Está muertita.”

We were so poor that my mother’s funeral was paid for by Rosemary’s parents. On her tombstone I had inscribed “Sursum Corda” something that my mother would often tell me when I was depressed. It means in Latin, from the Latin Mass, “Lift up your heart.”

I cannot stop here without mentioning that I became a successful photographer in Vancouver because of the mentorship of three mothers. They  were my grandmother, my mother and Rosemary.

The only mother left in my family is my Burnaby daughter Hilary who today will have brunch with her two daughters.

I must add that in Spanish the word “matriz” stand for womb. But it is also used as “casa matriz” or the headquarters of any company. In Spanish we certainly know where we come from.