birthday party

My old high school friend Dorine -who is not in the picture because she was the photographer- sent me this photo today. Such fun to see myself after so many years, this must have been 1974 or 1975. Yvonne -top left- was a big fan of Kamahl. The Elephant Song, remember? How tragic, it's almost the only thing I remember about her. I remember much more about Wilma, she is seated on my left. I used to pick her up in the morning, I rode my bike to the back of her house and went into the kitchen where her family was having breakfast. Wilma ate very little, and she was skin and bones. Her mother always tried to persuade her to eat, I remember her warming up some yoghurt. I think I have a tendency of remembering gory details about people. Wilma even had a steady boyfriend. To Wilma's left there is Myriam, she was a lovely girl. She and her family took me with them on holidays to Switzerland, while my parents were doing a divorce attempt. But the attempt failed, and that was the start of my independent life, at fifteen. One day much later I met Myriam in the hospital, as my dad lay there dying. She had four children! And next to Myriam is Maryam, but I didn't know her very well. And I think the girl bottom left was also in our school, but she is the only one I know on the front row, all those girls were in a choir with Dorine. And Dorine became a musician later in life.