This girl, I can never forget her face, it's been 40 years, and yet I wonder who was this girl, Hiroko that visited my elementary school in West Vancouver? You see, in 1980, there was a girl from Japan, who stayed in my grade 4 class for a short time. It might have been for a few weeks, or months. Our class was very excited when she brought along these small strips of colored paper and introduced to my classmates the world or orgami! It was very exciting to witness the transformation of a small piece of paper into a crane, or anything that the imagination could conjoure up. I remeber asking Hiroko to make me an orgami crane, to which she happly made for me.
The one memory which stood out was when during classtime, I had asked Hiroko if she would walk with me (along my route) home after school, to which she she replied (to my suprise), "Yes". I was very excited that day, and during that walk after school, I don't remeber what we had talked about. There was a point along the path were I had to go a different route and an older boy (perhaps her brother), was waiting for her. She waved and said, "Goodbye" and that was the last memory I have of her.
There isn't a day that goes by, that I ask myself, "Who was that girl? Does she remember me? What became of her, and where is she now?" Maybe, one day, that girl Hiroko might find this blog, read it, and connect with me again.