My New Friend
Published on
By Dani Castro
2014… In a normal day in the Community Centre changing room, I hardly realized that the typical attitude of a three year old child (my daughter Clara) would allow me to meet one of the most memorable people I met in my life.
The swimming class wasn’t enough to weary Clara. She decided that she needed to run around in the dressing room and defy me. All I wanted was to give her a quick shower, put on some clothes, and go home. I’d done it in five minutes, had she cooperated. But fortunately, she did not cooperate. Fortunately she cried when I reprimanded her, and fortunately that I lost my temper and raised my voice. There, in the same changing room, there was Kassia who, seeing my situation, came closer and asked: “Do you need shampoo?”. I was embarrassed to realize that I wasn’t the only Brazilian in there… someone else heard Clara’s hissy fit and my scolding. Kassia assured me that it was typical of that age: “My children do that too!”, she said, perhaps trying to encourage me. There they were: Gisele and Livia, sitting down, well behaved, on a bench, with their eight and six years old respectively. I still have that image vividly in my memory.
We chatted a little bit, exchanged names, and added each other to Facebook. After that, I think I saw Kassia a couple more times, in a Ladies Night Out with common friends. I connected with her immediately: she was calm, discrete, peaceful, and yet funny and spirited. There was something about her that captivated me, and I really liked to talk to her during those events.
In one of those Ladies Night Out events, in March 2015, Kassia told me that she got a job to work from home for Lufthansa. I ended up applying for the same job, since I was also trying to get back to work, and I was hired. We started working together in May 2015. And that’s how our friendship began.