I’d known her all of two months when she nervously approached me one day and said that Ramadan would be starting the following week and she wanted me to know she’d be fasting, so she’d appreciate it if she could sit out any lunchtime meetings, and that she’d need a day off afterward to celebrate Eid. I showed up to the office on the last day of Ramadan with a gift basket the size of her, filled with all kinds of chocolate-covered treats, a personalized bed and collar for Najme, a necklace with Shazia’s name in Arabic on it, and a donation to Islamic Relief Canada made in her name. But it was
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