Niño 13 May 2026

Waiting to Join Rosemary in Oblivion 

My Dear Rosemary,

Both of us know that in our oblivion we will never see each other again. But writing to you today feels almost comforting as you are the only person in my life that understands what it is like to lose our cat Niño.

Rosemary & Niño May 2020

This morning when I woke up, both cats, as usual, were right next to me sleeping. But that was not to be. Niño was dead. He must have died early in the morning as rigor mortis had not set in.

When you were alive in the crazy world we were both living in you were a paragon of stability. You would understand that when Niño stared at me with those intelligent eyes there was stability there, too. No matter what I did during the day, if I had to leave home I had that comforting thought of arriving home to Niño a Niño. It was never quite the same as when you were alive and you would ask me, “Alex, how was your day?”

Through the years we came to the conclusion that the quickest cure to a dead cat was a brand new one. We never got a kitten. We liked the mutual and pleasant task of learning to adapt to each other. But now it is different as Niña is Niño’s twin and I could never get another cat that might not get along with her. We both went to the SPCA to get them. Niña became your cat and Niño was mine. After you died the previously shy Niña competed with Niño for my attention. I now grieve that Niño is gone but with Niña we will share our grief and live will be tolerable.

In my diminishing world of people that I know I now live alone (not quite) with one cat. Today she got on me and we almost had a siesta. She kept smelling the spot where Niño died. I wonder if she knows that her twin brother is dead? I often wondered if they remembered you.

It is paradoxical that I am getting rid of stuff that was Niño’s. I threw away his cancer medicines. But what will I do with his shiny metal eating dish? I took him to the Veterinary Hospital on West Boulevard to be cremated in his wicker basket. What shall I do with it? The basket had a blue towel. Will I launder it and put it away? 

In these last months he would sun himself just about here.

 

Before I left him at the hospital I gave him a big hug and smelled his cattiness.

Our daily night routine will be different. At around 8pm I will give  Niña her treats. Then I will bathe, get into bed and read. It was when I was about to turn off the light that I would get Niño right next to me. He had been ailing for over a month. He seemed to find comfort in my touching him and brushing him.

I will think of that look on his face when I often imagine him saying, “Papi, don’t die before we do. If not, who will take care of us?” With him gone, statistically I believe I will be next.

Rosemary you died on our bed. Niño died on our bed. It is obvious that your almost 84 year-old husband will probably die on it, too. Is that symmetrical? I have written here before, that after you died, when our two daughters and granddaughters were waiting for the funeral service to take you away I knew that I had one obligation. If I was going to call myself a photographer I had to take your last portrait. I went upstairs to find  Niña asleep on your chest. I cried. In my life I have only photographed death twice - you and Niño.

As your portrait on the wall from my bed stares at me, It is now even more obvious that the world that you and I shared for 52 years is breaking up into one that if you were alive we would not want to live with anymore. When I drive in this Vancouver I think, “Rosemary, you would never recognize the city you brought us to in 1975. It is a cold alien place where people now avoid face to face communication."

Six minutes before you died you asked, “Am I dying?” I could not answer. Now I know I have to stay around until Niña goes, even though I might before her. My will to keep living is diminished. Yes, I am dying but not quite yet.

The urn with the ashes of your cat Casi-Casi, are in a pot in our garden. Niño’s will be in a similar urn and will be company to Casi-Casi.

When I turn off the lights tonight there will be for of us. You, Niño, Niña and me. The two of you are strong absent presences of that I loved.

And explanation of the red roses on Niño. Before Rosemary died she often went to our old Kerrisdale garden to see what she could find. One day she brought a  red rose bush and told me it had been growing on the back lane. I told her that we had  never had red roses ever on our back lane. In last century Vancouver purchased roses were not on their own root stock. They were grafted to an old and very sturdy rose called Rosa 'Dr. Huey'. After the rose that was grafted to it, Dr Huey came back. I grows nicely in our garden. This rose's stability exactly mirrors that of Rosemary and my Niño. Henceforth the rose will  my memory of two dead loved ones.

Niña this afternoon 13 May 2026 without Niño