George Alexander Waterhouse-Hayward, Austin, Texas, 1958

You may win your heart's desire, but in the end you're cheated of it by death.  Jorge Luís Borges

It is a tough job that George Alexander Waterhouse-Hayward has decided to undertake. He is writing a slightly premature obituary.

Birth Spoon that reveals that subject was born at 2:50 AM

He was a tad undecided if the obituary should be in first person or third person. He called his friend, Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate, George Bowering (the first one, 2002-2004) and told him that he was thinking of writing something different. Bowering responded (how did he know?), “You are writing your obituary.” Then off the cuff, immediately said, “If you write it in the third person those who read it will be with you.”

Waterhouse-Hayward is 80.  He lived with his wife Rosemary Elizabeth Healey for 52 years. The percentage of his life with her is 65%. This is really a lifetime, he opines.

Rosemary Waterhouse-Hayward died on December 9, 2020 around 6:30 pm. Waterhouse-Hayward believes those 52 years together (1967 to 1975 in Mexico City and 1975 to 2020 in Vancouver) were the best years of his life. What has followed, in spite of daily minialities to make the motion of keeping busy, and living with two brother and sister cats, it is not enough of a life. His two daughters Hilary Stewart and Alexandra Waterhouse-Hayward tell him to keep busy. He does keep busy, but the constant reminder of Rosemary’s absent presence, is an overwhelming grief.

While Waterhouse-Hayward is not suicidal he does believe that he was alive until 9 December 2020 but now it is obvious that he is waiting for a final oblivion.

R.I.P. soon.

Family rumours reveal that when George Alexander Waterhouse-Hayward was born at the Sanatorio Anchorena in Buenos Aires, his birth was recorded by a photographer using a flash with magnesium powder. It is perhaps then that Waterhouse-Hayward decided that one day he would become a photographer.