Once we sold our lovely Kerrisdale home and garden about 7 years ago and we then moved to Kitsilano Rosemary and I often spoke of our death and who would go first. I remember telling her, “If I die first don’t install a bench in some park in my memory.” While I was telling her this, she was quietly making us financially independent so that if she went first I would have nothing (at least finances) to worry about.
Because I was 57 when I first met architect Abraham Rogatnick, a good friend of all our family, I followed him getting older and being told what it was like. He was 86 when he died in 2009.
I remember him telling me that the most useful kitchen tool he had was a bottle opener (similar to the one in this scan). Now every time I use it (and I do need to use it) I think how Rosemary would have handled living in our Kits home without me. I know that she could have managed the garden well but would have hired a gardener to prune some of the big roses.
But most of all I wonder how she would have handled living alone with our two cats Niño and Niña. She would have dealt much more efficiently in paying the bills and the taxes from the comfort of her bed with her handy iPhone.
My youngest daughter Hilary calls me almost every day. Her sister Alexandra is more sporadic.
But there is something that troubles me.
Alexandra deals with my banking finances since I am ignorant about it. Hilary has a cocktail of pills that I take every morning for my health and makes sure that we see a good film every week and a half.
I do believe that if Rosemary were the live parent, they would come to visit her more often and Rosemary’s granddaughters would call her to ask how she is. My granddaughters never call or visit.
On the one hand I should feel flattered that my daughters feel that I am independent. But they do not understand that this independence comes at the loss that is only made bearable by the humanity of my two cats.
I could have never predicted that when Rosemary died on 9 November 2020 that our family would become a pale version of what it was.
