When Rosemary was beginning to ail I would tell her that we were WTD which meant “waiting to die”. She understood. Few that I now understand. I later modified it to PTD which means “preparing to die”.

This means that I am sifting through so many of my belongings and trying to figure out if I should just trash them. Would either of my two daughters or granddaughters see any value in my four St. Edward’s High School annuals? Will any of them want to keep my Rosemary’s wedding dress which is hanging in our closet and is in perfect shape? It is not a traditional wedding dress so it can be worn for any occasion.

This strip of colour negative I recently found. I showed it to Hilary who is the mother of the little girl, Rebecca. She could not tell me anything.

What do I do with it? I have extensive family files by date. If I put it into an approximate date file will anybody when I am gone care?

PTD is a tough activity which I work on every day.

I have written before how once when Rosemary and I were leaving our Kerrisdale home to visit our Alexandra in Lillooet I told her, “What if we were to hire an arsonist to burn down our house while we are gone? Would it be liberating?" She did not think that was such a bad idea.

These little pictures perhaps taken at 1/60 second represent a moment that I thought was important. Has that importance dissipated because of the quantity of family photographs I have taken? Is their value deminished?