Coincidental Sisters
When Swiss-born Ursula joined the staff at one of the Vancouver School Board’s job sites, she immediately came over to me after the staff introduction and said, “I have a sister named Verena. Are you Swiss, too?”
I said, “No, but I have an Austro-German background.” I went on to tell her that since the first-born daughter in my family got the traditional “grandmother’s” first name, when it came to naming me, my parents were freer to choose. Living in Austria, post-World War II, my mother decided to choose a more unusual and melodic name. When she came across “Verena,” she liked it. So did my dad.
Later, they explained to me that it was a Swiss name, historically based on a third century Swiss Saint and derived from Latin (veritas = truth, ena = little).
Ursula and I immediately bonded over this curious connection; not only being Canadian immigrants born in post-war Europe, one year apart, but also sharing this uncanny coincidence to my then unusual name.
What we found out sometime later, was even more surprising.
One day, a year after we’d met and become friends, we decided to take a spontaneous short trip to California during one of our breaks.
Still working at the time, we hastily made the booking during lunch hour. As we were looking over each other’s shoulder to make sure we filled in all the details correctly, Ursula let out a short gasp when it was my turn to enter my birthdate.
Not only did I have the same name as her late sister, but our birthdays were also on the same day: May 1. Only the year differed.
We howled in synchronistic laughter on discovering this and decided that we had to be “sisters” by coincidence.
That was about 10 years ago, and when we are together, people still ask us if we are related because of our similar stature, facial features, and European backgrounds.
And there’s that uncanny connection to a name and a birthday.
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