Strange Bedfellows And Unlikely Friends!

The day before yesterday, Thursday, October 1st, was bittersweet, mainly because it marked the end (sort of) of a period of camaraderie and friendship I'd had earlier and signaled the forging of a new alliance with my colleagues and friends. There were the four of us women at the workplace, all from different backgrounds and with varied interests and of different ages, but we seemed to have struck a friendship that transcended everything petty and mundane. We were members of a sisterhood who had excellent vibes and were always there for each other, personally and professionally.

I took up teaching an evening class for immigrants last June, a class that was labor market focused, aimed at helping immigrants towards employability and settlement in Canada. Two weeks later came S.G. who was to teach an ESL class for immigrants as well. Both of us hit it off right from the start, despite the difference in our ages. We were as different as chalk from cheese, but there was this comfortable understanding between us. S. was into figure competitions and hit the gym faithfully every single day, something that inspired me no end. Young and petite as she was, she could easily beat the crap out of any able-bodied man, I thought, and that was something that I admired endlessly again.Both S. and I put in a full day's work and then showed up to teach this evening class, but there was this positive energy flowing between us that made working into the late hours a cakewalk.

Two months later G.P. joined our team to teach another labour market focused class in the evening. G. was closer in age to me and I discovered shortly thereafter that we were kindred spirits who could chat about anything and everything under the sun. With her Ph.D. in Linguistics, she was a well-read and well-informed person. Endless were our conversations on the bus and off it as well. We would talk incessantly about our academic backgounds, what we had given up professionally in our countries to come as immigrants to Canada, the unfairness of life in general, the vagaries of our growing children and what not. The fact that G.'s was a labour market focused class as well helped...we made it a point to have joint activities for our classes- conversation sessions, fieldtrips, guest speakers et al. It was just the three women in the evenings thrice a week, S., G., and myself, and man, didn't we rock!

It so happened that in April, S. and I shared a Level 4 class during the day, myself teaching in the mornings and S. in the afternoons. It was then that we met C.M., an affable, genial, pleasant-mannered darling of a person. She was considerably older than the rest of us, but we all meshed right in. C. was such an angel, a colleague who was always friendly and outgoing and put everyone else at ease. Many were the occasions when we brought our students together for a joint activity and just basked in the warmth and geniality of it all. Well, due to personal reasons, C. chose to move to another location because of its proximity to her home, and come Monday, we're all going to miss her terribly at work.

Day before yesterday was bittersweet because we were happy for C. that she'll be working closer to home, but also sad that she was leaving us all. To mark the occasion, we four ladies hit White Spot, a restaurant close by and savored our time together for one last time. I'm hoping that it isn't the last time ever...maybe Providence will engineer a situation where we're all thrown together again, strange bedfellows and unlikely friends in that sisterhood of ours we cherish so much!