In March I picked up an old friend at the airport.

She is Catholic East Indi­an by cul­ture, Cana­di­an by citizenship.

We first met in the US when our old­est chil­dren were 4 years old and attend­ing a part-time pre-school pro­gramme – she was the class­room aide.

Since my broth­er in Eng­land had just start­ed going out with an Indi­an girl a con­ver­sa­tion ensued com­par­ing notes and fam­i­ly histories.

It lat­er turned out that my now sister-in-law’s father and my friend’s father knew each oth­er in East Africa many years ago! Quirk!

My Cana­di­an friend and I have held on to our friend­ship despite her mov­ing away. We com­pare notes once a year on a long phone conversation.

Ten or eleven years ago (1996 I think) I had a free roundtrip air­fare to any­where in the coun­try. Where could I go?

I decid­ed on Van­cou­ver, BC, to vis­it my friend, fly­ing into Seat­tle to take the train on that won­der­ful north bound coastal route into Canada. 

Two oth­er quirks of fate:

A young home ed friend was at col­lege in Seat­tle. “Come and stay with me” she said. 

The lady in the adja­cent seat on my flight was return­ing to Seat­tle from an audi­ol­o­gy con­fer­ence. (She lat­er gave me a ride to the col­lege from the air­port!). I asked “Do you know …?” “Yes, she was one of our speak­er­s”! (An audi­ol­o­gist friend of mine – our chil­dren had grown up togeth­er from the time they were a year old) 

The quirk of fate for that week­end in March is that my old­est son was con­tact­ed by the audiologist’s old­est son, with whom he went to that same pre-school — WOW!

Now to come full cir­cle – before I went to meet my Cana­di­an friend I said hi to our young home ed friend (who went to col­lege in Seat­tle) who just hap­pened to be in town for the weekend!

So many quirks of fate or 6 (or less) degrees of separation! 

But they make me smile!