Niña above and Niño below

Anniversaries are terrible when they involve the death of a loved one.

After a bit more than a month, when I met my Rosemary, we were married on February 8 1968 in Coyoacán, Mexico. Rosemary died on December 9, 2020. Those dates have been in my soul and it would have been impossible for me to forget them and not to write about them today.

While “nunca más” is a translation of nevermore, the use of that word by Edgar Alan Poe makes the word in English that much more damning for me. I live in a jar full of memories that can never be experienced in reality again. Going up and down the stairs of my Kits house and seeing all those family photographs and more in my bedroom, living room and dining room is an exquisite but sad experience.

I have no idea how my daughters are remembering today. I look at Niño and Niña, two cats Rosemary and I rescued from the SPCA 7 years ago, and I realize that she loved and petted both of them when they were on our bed with us. They constantly remind me of her absent presence.

While I have written about this incident before, I cannot but repeat it. We were in the living room waiting for the funeral people to show up. Rosemary was upstairs on our bed. I thought, “Alex you are a photographer. You have to take that photograph.” I went up and there was my dead wife with Niña asleep on her chest. I took that photograph. Nobody in my family will ever see it. That photograph will be in my memory until oblivion takes it away.