Niña

I believe that we humans do borrow from birds a sense of place and location. With logging and the expansion of cities, or the destruction of jungle, when birds migrate they have problems in navigation. But they manage.

When I drive in Vancouver I can instantly remember when looking at a new tall tower what was there before. I know where every location of Vancouver Magazine ever was.

Looking at anything occupying a space in my Kits home reminds me of its origin or where it may have been before. This presents me with a melancholic feeling of what was there and is no longer there.

That, I believe, is the principal problem in trying to understand the death of a loved one. In my case it is that of Rosemary.

Time has blurred my grief for my mother, father and grandmother. While time does not heal it does diminish. That is not the case when you have lived with someone as I did with Rosemary for 52 years.

Many times in previous blogs I have written how when I lie on my bed I can sense with my peripheral vision Rosemary’s spot which I have come to call her absent presence. This especially happens when I turn off the lights at night to sleep.

In the last month my peripheral vision has given me a sense of an occupation of that empty space that seems correct but leaves me wondering if Niña who now sleeps there remembers her former mistress.