Sunday's Child

The Toastmaster Experience

I belong to "CyberSpeakers," a Toastmasters club that meets every Thursday during the lunch hour at IBM in Burnaby. Each time I attend one of these meetings I learn something new; I am inspired; and I am moved to laughter. Yesterday's meeting was no exception. Here's what happened:

The first speaker was Rachel. She was yesterday's "Sergeant at Arms," whose primary responsibility was to open the meeting with a humourous or inspiring story. Rachel chose a funny story. She told the audience about her husband's aversion to cooking and all-things domestic. Shortly after the birth of their first child, Rachel compiled a shopping list for her husband, who up until this time had never done much in the way of grocery shopping. Rachel wrote a very succinct list: 1) eggs 2) sugar 3) milk 4) green pepper. The husband returned from the supermarket with 1 dozen eggs, 2 bags of sugar, 3 cartons of milk and 4 green peppers.

Now from the humourous to the poignant: Mihai, also a fellow Toastmaster, delivered his second "prepared" speech. Prepared speeches are between 5 and 7 minutes in length. Mihai chose to talk about his friend, Henry -- a man who had a profound impact on the direction of Mihai's life.

Mihai immigrated to Canada from Romania at the same time as Henry immigrated to Canada from Peru. Both men worked for the same technology company in Toronto. Their friendship spanned a decade and during this time they took turns introducing each other to new people.

Henry was responsible for introducing Mihai to a woman who would later become Mihai's wife. Henry and Mihai continued their friendship even after the two men moved to other jobs. After several years, Mihai tranferred to Vancouver with his wife and baby daughter. Henry stayed in Toronto with his wife and young daughter, who was born two weeks after Mihai's daughter.

A year ago, Henry was diagnosed with a terminal illness. He died last February. To this day, Mihai is thankful and mindful of Henry's friendship. There's not a day that goes by that he doesn't consider his friend and the friendship they shared. The legacy of that friendship is Mihai's wife and daughter.

After the meeting, I gathered up my perspective and headed back to my desk.