Every day of my present existence is one that I share with my Rosemary who died on 9 December 2026.

I share with birds in knowing when I drive around Vancouver the places where I went with her.  The empty seat in my Cruze is her absent presence. Some might say I am obsessed. Few know what it is to have been married for 52 years to a woman who had multiple interests that we shared. There were even moments when both of us in bed were reading the same author.

The scanned frame picture here is on my dining room credenza. When I sit to have my lunch or dinner she stares at me. I took the photograph in Mexico City in 1969 and it was one of a series that represented the first nude photographs I ever took.

Borges often wrote that every first moment is repeated ad infinitum. A larger version of this photograph is on the wall opposite to my bed. Rosemary stares at me and keeps on after I turn of the lights.

In a Borgesian correction of what he wrote I look at the photograph and I am ready to take it before I took it again. I imagine what I might have said to her.

I never asked her why it was that even when she made a small smile those eyes of her were sad.

I must add that with her portrait in my bedroom she is with me.