When my granddaughter Rebecca (now 21) was 8 or 9 and her sister Lauren (now 16) was 5 they would be dropped off at our large Kerrisdale home on Saturdays. There would be a knock on the door. I would open the door and Rebecca (with her sister behind her) would, with a big smile, say to me, “¿Cómo estás Papi?” They would then scurry through the house straight to the back kitchen door and run into the garden.

The girls have grown up and Rosemary and I rarely see them. We are now beginning to understand Rosemary’s mother (who lived in New Dublin, Ontario) hoping so many years ago for that long-distance-feeling connection with our daughters via the telephone (when telephones were only telephones).

Last night we picked up Lauren at her dance and we drove her to her home in Burnaby. Our daughter Hilary had invited us for dinner and we knew that Rebecca was going to be there.

It was a pleasure to eat food I had not cooked, and to sit at a table and be served. But best of all the sharing of dinner with Hilary and those two who are also dear to our hearts was a moment I will savour.

The lights in Hilary’s house can never compete with those in my little Kitsilano studio. And daylight had been long gone.

I persuaded Lauren and Rebecca to pose for me in the kitchen. What you see is the best I could do with the circumstances. But I will not attempt to hide my pleasure in enjoying the photographs taken.