My mother is in her 90s. She was born in the small village of Ayios Georgios tou Sparathiko north of Famagusta now in the Turkish controlled northern part of Cyprus. She was one of the early economic migrants from the island to the UK shortly after WWII. In the troubles of 1974 her mother, sister and sister’s family fled to the south of the island leaving behind forever their homes, their roots and their memories. Her family home in Ayios Georgios was knocked down soon after.

A few years back as my mother’s health deteriorated she asked me to take her back to Cyprus so she could see her family and friends there one last time. I tired her out visiting nephews and nieces and cousins and ‘choriani’. The more stories were told and photos exchanged of life back in the village pre-1974, the more my mother became increasingly melancholy and dispirited. She understood that she would never see again her village or home or village church or places where she played as a child; the fields where she helped her mother and father scrape a subsistence living; her neighbours’ and relatives’ houses where the women and children would gather to hear stories and tell tales; the kaffeneion where her father and the men of the village would resolve the big issues of the day and share news from neighbouring villages.

To lift her gloomy wistfulness I took her for a day out with a couple of relatives. We thought we would have a look at the Akrotiri peninsula which neither of us knew well. Deeper into the peninsula the roads turn to quiet modest tracks weaving between the salt lake and the sea, winding through marsh fields and the odd grazing cow, and passing out-of-the-blue small roadside religious shrines, often with their own tribute to the Hellenic past of the island, that you find all across the island.

Down one such reclusive track we stumbled across a small church. Not an uncommon sight in Cyprus and one we would have driven past if we had not noticed its name – Ayios Georgios. My mother asked me to stop so she could pay her respects to the patron saint of her village church after whom her village was named.

Out here, I told her, we would be lucky to find it open late afternoon on a weekday. She said that the Saint would respect her wishes to give blessing to the dragon slayer.

She showed no surprise when the door creaked slowly open. Inside its small chamber was dark, lit only by end-of-day light that came through a small window on the west side of the nave. To relieve the gloom we lit candles in memory of too many departed relatives and loved ones. It was then that the setting sun broke free from behind a cloud and shot a beam of bright light through the small window. It rested precisely on a small icon of St George that hang on the wall, emblazing the knightly saint in golden light in its otherwise dim depositary.

My mother took this as a sign. Here we were, in the middle of nowhere, stumbling across an open but empty church, dedicated to her patron saint whose visage is lit up by the light of God in answer to her overbearing nostalgic melancholy. This could be no coincidence, she was sure.

The image lasted barely a few minutes as the sun drifted lower in its end of day ritual. Yet it revived my mother’s spirits – she was at peace. This spiritual connection with her roots could not change the fact that she would not see her ancestral home, her village, her family in Cyprus again - but she was now alright with that. Her foundations - deeply rooted in the Spirit of Cyprus but dimmed by time, distance and the ravages of war - had been reaffirmed.