A tribute to Angela Burian

Angela Burian, our Founder Director and known to many , in her capacity as Admissions Tutor, died peacefully and quietly on Friday morning 4 th April 2003, after a short period in hospital.   She died in the way she wanted to, with her family around her.  Many were aware that she fought cancer for several years, defying all her doctors' gloomier predictions.  From the moment she gathered us together around 1999, to do online training, she told us she had cancer.

However, being Angela, she refused to languish and dwindle slowly away.  She ignored the cancer, preferring to concentrate on the new and exciting venture that was Counselling Online Ltd. - just letting us know from time to time that she was feeling rough and in need of a break from the demands of emailing.  Her courage, complete lack of self pity and refusal to languish was a lesson to all of us who knew her, showing a positive way to deal with terminal illness.  

Angela's support and positive attitude was an inspiration to us all.  Her policy of saying 'yes' to everything and working out the problems later, meant we could all approach her with ideas and suggestions and not feel dismissed.  In the same way, her ideas that online training should be fun as well as informative and practical have become ours, too.

Everyone at Counselling Online Ltd. owes her a huge debt of gratitude.   Without her vision and encouragement, we would never have met, or started online counselling training.  She had a unique way of encouraging us to believe in ourselves and aim for and achieve more than we thought we could.  She will be much missed.  The training courses she began, will be a lasting tribute to her spirit.

Gill Jones

Here are some comments from her family

“ Just about everyone agrees that their lives have in some way been touched for the better by encountering Angela's qualities ( in various guises ) and there are so many facets that one could  say that there are as many

‘ Angelas' as there are people who have met her.....

One lasting effect with regard to counselling and the OLT and the Network is that is has brought people of like goodwill together and facilitated a surer way of helping those who seek support in a benign and non invasive way.

Humour was a strong quality and I do know that she was amazingly free of judgment, criticism or condemnation.  Remarkable - particularly as she, like all of us encountered so many opportunities in our daily lives to be tempted into such reactions... She never discussed her clients with me but when she was seeing them in our home, I would occasionally pass the room where she was receiving people to hear peals of laughter. Sometimes I caught sight of them leaving either as singles or in couples and usually saw and felt broad grins and ease as they left.”

Peter Burian

Angela's email address was angelburian@ aol.com and prompted this from her brother :

“I am sure she is now counselling the angels!”   Peter Heck