With my Rosemary gone on December 8, 2020, my constant grief is ameliorated by three females and a male. My cats Niño and Niña are two of them. The other two are my daughters Alexandra and Hilary.

The former, Alexandra keeps me up-to-date on my banking as I am not swift as Rosemary was with financial matters. With an ever-smiling Hilary we go to see fine films every week and a half. Just a few days ago she came to my rescue.

With Rosemary we had for 20 years a daily breakfast in bed. I have kept the custom and while I read my NYTimes and Vancouver Sun I have the company of my two orange and white cats. I always drink a large mug of very strong tea. 

A few days ago I dropped the tray and broke the cat mug I drink my tea from. It is the third made-in-England mug I break. It had the image that was an almost exact likeness to Rosemary’s beloved cat Casi-Casi who died when we moved to our present Kits home.

The last mug I found at a store in Prince Edward Island. I came to the conclusion that as I get older (I am 81) I need not be attached to the many objects and stuff in my house. I told myself to buy a large clear glass beer mug at my nearby Dollar Store and not worry ever again or experience the grief of the loss of a valued object.

I told Hilary.

She ordered a new mug from the store in Prince Edward Island and told me that I should keep it downstairs and use it only at the table with guests. For my daily breakfast she suggested I buy that clear glass beer mug. And this I did. Bless my daughters (and my cats, too).

Helleborus argutifolius - 7 March 2024

No day happens since my Rosemary died on December 8 2020 that I do not think of her or I am reminded of her.

With the garden giving me indication that it is about to wake up for spring I see her on her knees cleaning it all up. Important, too, I notice some of her plants from a few years ago that I had forgotten about and somehow did not make it. 

Helleborus argutifolius & Helleborus x nigercors 'Honeyhill Joy' 7 March 2024

In our Kerrisdale garden we had plants that simply could not move to our smaller garden. But there was on plant that Rosemary adored that she simply called the Corsican Hellebore (Helleborus argutifolius). Rosemary did not like bright coloured flowers. She appreciated the light, yellow/green/white sober tones of this hellebore. When that plant came to my memory one evening in bed I knew what I had to do. I went to Phoenix Perennials in Richmond. They stock the best variety of hellebores in the Lower Mainland. When I arrived, I asked to pleasant women who were surrounded by hundreds of hellebores, if they had any Corsicans. They pointed at some. I then noticed some more elaborate versions which happened to be of sport of a different species called Helleborus x nigercors  ‘Honeyhill Joy’. I bought it, too.

I like going to Phoenix Perennials, owner Gary  Lewis is friendly and (important) has lots of botanical knowledge. They have lots of new hosta cultivars (perhaps in a month ) and small, not aggressive clematis. Rosemary and I discovered that for our many roses in large pots on our deck, these smaller clematis worked nicely with roses and did not compete for nutrients.

As for these hellebores in their pots I look at them and it is no different from looking at my smiling Rosemary.

I will plant them, and in my head, St. Luke’s citation from the gospel, “Do this in remembrance of me,"  will there.

Napoleon and Corsican hellebores came from the same island.

Phoenix Perennials 3380 No. 6 Road, Richmond, BC  604 - 270-4133

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Rosemary minutes after she died

In my two years of studying philosophy in Mexico City in 1962 under Ramón Xirau, it meant and means that my thoughts about death are always there and particularly because of my many years of living in Mexico. I can quote Epicurus.

Three years after the death of my wife Rosemary on December 8, 2020, I constantly remember her and note her absent presence all day, every day, at home, in our car, in the garden, and all the places we went together in Vancouver.

I give no importance if anybody cares about my usual subject in my blogs about how I miss Rosemary. What is important is that my constant thought, while a sad one, helps me figure out death and my forthcoming one. And yet it is impossible for me to grasp how someone alive with me for 52 years is not around, not present, not alive, not there. My peripheral vision notes the empty spot on the bed where she always was.

Last night the thought on the different kinds of death came to me when my lights were out.

You can die instantly in an accident, or you can have a heart attack in your sleep. What is death to a soldier in battle not knowing if he will die that day? What is death to someone alive who has been given a couple of months to live?

My Rosemary was told she was going to die. She sent a lovely message to our eldest granddaughter telling her she had little time and wanted to have some moments with her. She even asked her when it would be convenient for her.

And lastly what is it like when you feel and understand, while in bed, that you are going to die that day, that hour and even in those minutes?

I had the experience of being witness to that twice. My mother was a hypochondriac, even though she had plenty of reasons for feeling sick.  She had Meniere’s Disease.  In our family we called her Sarah Bernhardt because of her constant telling us how sick she was.

There she was in her bed in Mexico City in 1972 in the presence of Rosemary. She told us “This time I am going to die.” Minutes later she breathed in and died. We could not find a doctor in the neighbourhood so a veterinarian declared her dead.

The second death I witnessed was that of Rosemary. My two daughters and our eldest granddaughter Rebecca were there by her bed. She asked, “Am I dying?” I could not answer and minutes later she was dead.

Can we ever know what it feels when you are about to die and you ask people around you if you are in fact dying?

In the middle of the night last night I Messengered my two daughters as to who closed Rosemary's eyes. My eldest daughter asked why I was asking. I told her I was going to write a blog about Hollywood beside death scenes. The nurse who was supposed to treat Rosemary arrived after Rosemary had died. According to my eldest daughter it was she who closed her eyes.

All the above is a reality that is as far removed from all those Hollywood films deathbed scenes.

And so I think about death every day. As my lymphoma-sick male cat Niño sticks to me like glue I wonder if he does not need to ask me if he is dying. He knows.

He and his sister Niña as they lie on me during the day and at night on the bed are direct live routes to my Rosemary. In the first few months after Rosemary died I would loudly say, “Rosemary.”  They would look up at me. Now, it would seem they have forgotten her. They are lucky. Am I?