The church was much Verna’s life. After a long period of study, Enez and I
had the pleasure of attending her Ordination in St George’s on 1 st July
2012. She was glowing with sheer joy that day.
How brief that joy was to be.
On the 2 nd of July, Verna flew to Athens to take up a post in the city’s St.
Paul’s Anglican Church. About six weeks later our friend Fr. Michael
telephoned me with the sad news that Verna was dead. I was stunned.
As far as is known, Verna had adopted a stray kitten. Some of her
neighbours were none too keen on this idea. It is believed she may have
gone on to her balcony during the night to take the kitten into the
house. Many balconies in Athens have very low railings around them and
Verna fell from the balcony to her death.
On the 13 th October 2012, Enez attended a Requiem for Verna in St
George’s, Lisbon. At that time due to the effects of chemotherapy I could
not attend. Fortunately, Enez knew her way about Lisbon, and could speak
some Portuguese I knew she would be fine. We had made many friends in
the congregation over the years so she was warmly welcomed and looked
after.
Prior to her Ordination Verna knew she would be going to Athens. Knowing
we would have another holiday that year, she asked us to consider going to
Athens. We went to our travel agent and in no time it was arranged for us to
be in Athens in November of that year. As you can imagine with Verna’s
death it was with heavy hearts that we boarded our B.A. flight to the Greek
capital from Heathrow.
The day following our arrival we attended St. Paul’s. At fellowship following
the Eucharist, it was obvious from the people to whom we spoke that in her
brief time with the congregation, Verna had made an impact. One woman
turned away from us in tears.
At that time, Athens was a city in turmoil. There were strikes every day,
demonstrations every other night and police constantly in full riot gear. This
greatly detracted from all of the historic sights the city has to offer. Our room
in our hotel looked out on to the Temple of Zeus, we visited the Acropolis
and did a tour to the Oracle at Delphi where Enez drank the water from the
Castalion Springs. (Mentioned by Robert Burns in his Cantata – The Jolly
Beggars, “I never drank the Muses’ stank, Castalia’s burn, an a’ that: But
there it streams, an richly reams – My Helicon I ca’ that.)
In spite of this and more, we heaved a sigh of relief when our plane took off
bound for Heathrow on the first stage of our journey home.
But one man was to play a major part in our final path to St. Oswald’s.
George Anderson
To be continued
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