It is not becoming any easier these days to sit at my computer to write a blog. The pandemic isolation and living without my Rosemary follows me with melancholy from day to day. Days pass by quickly and the only routines are the daily menialities and the cats staring at me at all times.  They make me feel guilty that I have to give them even more attention to them.

But my eldest daughter Ale in Lillooet calls me every day and Hilary not only calls, but because she lives in Burnaby, she manages to visit me twice a week. It is a pleasure to cook for her and sit down for a meal with her company.

But I have found another activity that has prevented me from feeling what the woman may have been feeling when I photographed her years ago in front of the Vancouver General Hospital for a story on the lack of beds. It is one of the saddest photographs I have ever taken.

But then I look at this 2020 photograph of Rosemary in our Kitsilano garden and I can almost smile. She does represent a sort of small future for me to continue without having to hold my hands up to my face.

I will be opening the little garden at the end of May or early June for the Vancouver Rose Society. I am making the garden, Rosemary’s garden as spiffy as I can. As I work in it every day there are the little details of some of her little plants in little corners and sometimes in little pots. 

This Narcissus bulbocodium (sometimes called the petticoat daffodil) caught my eye today. While I have some tiny hostas I tend to like big hostas and big rose shrubs. Somehow Rosemary had an eye for  little and elegant plants.

I can almost smile at the thought.