Rosa 'Zéphirine Drouhin' - 21 June 2025

No matter where I go in my home everything reminds me of my Rosemary. Another way of saying this is that I see her face everywhere. Of late I have enjoyed scanning roses past their prime. This one today, Rosa ‘Zéphirine Drouhin’ with its delicate mauve colour (it originally was red) somehow was Rosemary in elegance. Not the woman I met back in December 1967, but the woman who grew old with me.

This framed Polaroid that I took sometime around 1976 in Burnaby was one that ended in a shoebox. More recently I noticed it had a special charm. I had it framed. It is the first photograph I see when I enter our ground floor guest bathroom.

Combining what to me are the two faces of Rosemary, then and recently, before she died, felt something I was compelled to do.