I went to phone my dad from a pay phone, my once weekly call to him while I was staying with my boyfriend in the small town where he had found a job in a factory. Obviously this was before cell phones were in widespread use in SA. This was when I found out out my best friend and her family had been killed in a car accident. I walked back to the lodger place my boyfriend was staying, in tears. It was before breakfast. He was very concerned it would make a bad impression on the landlady if I didn't turn up for breakfast, so I went, not managing to hide how I was feeling at all. The landlady was horrible, and lectured me on etiquette - very poor form to be so publicly emotional. Luckily I had the rest of the day to myself, boyfriend went off to work and I didn't turn up for lunch, bugger the consequences. My best friend had a shitty life, alcoholic, abusive father, she was extremely shy, went bright red if you looked at her too hard, and I was really hoping she would find some happiness on leaving home and making her own life. She didn't even see her 21st birthday. I think of her often. Despite her circumstances, she was cool and funny and nice to be around. PS this is the emigrating sister - just wanted my friend to have more than one sentence in a blog.