Shortly after my grandfather (my mom's dad) died, my grandmother decided to have pictures taken of the family. She wanted head shots similar to the existing one of my Opa. Now, he died young, so all the children were buckets of swirling hormones and suffering under post-paternal death issues. Yet, this moment was chosen to freeze time for posterity sake. When this family is together they cry a lot, they bitch a lot, they get on each other's nerves a lot and my gosh .. do they ever LAUGH a lot.
My mom's family has always been something very interesting to me. The most striking thing about it is the fact that I am first-generation American on that side. They are all from the Netherlands, or from Holland, or Dutch (this was quite confusing in my childhood.)
Another interesting thing is the siblings go girl-boy-girl-boy-girl-boy. As a child, I had no problem remembering birth order, which was quite helpful.
I met these aunts and uncles all through various stages of my childhood - very rarely seeing more than one at a time. Visits to Lafayette, Louisiana. They would swim in the pool, speak a different language, and share their laughter with me in any way they could think of. I was captivated when they would exchange stories of their shared childhood with my mom. I often couldn't understand the stories (I only knew the bad Dutch words), but the laughter was enough. It is an incredible thing to laugh so hard that you cry, even though you don't understand a single word of what is being said.
Anyway, tonight I had some photoshop fun with the pics, just to do some exploring. Nothing involved; I am a novice ... but something. And don't try to read into the filters or colors... I am quite orangutanian at photo-editing.
Opa
Oma
Els (my mom)
Berry
Yvonne
Emile
Noortje
Ruud
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