When Rosemary and I moved from our large Kerrisdale home with its corner garden to our (now my) present little house in Kerrisdale, many homes were being torn down on our Athlone street and beyond. There were large metal containers that builders were using to tear down and to then build. One particular day, a sad one in my memory, I loaded my Malibu with many books (thousands) and I would throw them into the bins and say goodbye. Since I might have had 5000 books at that time all of them would not have been able to go to the Kits home. I now may have around 3000.

In these last few days I have been enjoying two books by Ian Rankin. I had not read one of the older ones. A Heart Full of Headstones is Rankin’s latest from 2022. At the end of the novel a retired Inspector John Rebus is declared guilty for murder. Could this be Rankin’s last Rebus novel? 

That made me think as I do not remember all the previous Rebus novels I read so many years.

I believe that every individual’s life is like a jar. When one is born the jar is empty. As one progresses in life the jar fills up little by little. Upon death the jar’s lid is screwed shut. I was shocked when I finished Julian Barnes' latest Departure (s) that he states that he is 80 and that it will be his last book.

This jar that I am has the content of all those books I read, of all the people I met and loved, of all the dogs and cats I had and we had, of cars purchased and sold, of children (two) born and raised, of two granddaughters loved, of sad moments and witnessing my mother die with Rosemary present and then watching Rosemary die (who 6 minutes before she died she asked, “Am I dying?”, of living in Argentina, Mexico and now Vancouver, of noticing my Rosemary for the first time from the back (those legs!) on December 15, 1967, of the many people I photographed, of the moments listening to tapes and records, of going to baroque and avant-garde concerts, of going with Rosemary many times to Buenos Aires, of going with her to Mexico, Venice, Florence, of going with her and our daughters to Spain, of obsessively taking photographs of Toledo from the very spot El Greco painted his famous scene of the city, of walking with Rosemary around the block with our male cat Niño in tow, of doing just that but without Rosemary once she had died and I could go on ad infinitum.

I am 84 and I believe there is not much room left in my jar.