Today marks the first anniversary of the death of my beloved Mike. He died on August 20th, 2013 at 08.40 am after suffering with a severe case of pancreatic cancer.
In my first tribute to Mike, which was written on the morning of his passing, I shared my experiences with friends and colleagues and was deeply touched that my words had a profound effect on others dealing with the death of their own loved ones.
His father, brother and I miss him terribly but want to continue to honor his outgoing spirit and compassion for humanity by encouraging you all to read this article. No, it will not talk about Mike, or how great he was (because this is clearly noted in the About Us section of this blog), but aims to help all of those who have (are) suffered (ing) some type of loss.
Over the past year, Mike's death has not only been had a profound spiritual journey for me, but also directly affected this blog. There were days when I couldn't be productive, and the blog suffered. Traffic declined, donations were (are) at ZERO and the blog began to become too much for me to maintain.
You see, man never gets over the loss of a loved one and although every one grieves in their own way, and at their own time, my grief evolved into a deep depression. Oh I posted my articles as usual, but there were days that I could not even flick on the computer.
And this is because on the morning when he passed, my heart, spirit and zest for life went with him. I felt as if I had completely lost my present and any potential future. The nights became sleepless and lonely, the days became meaningless and colorless and the weeks that followed were empty and had no purpose.
I had no motivation or incentive to do the slightest things and all I wanted to do was be alone, sleep and ask God why.
You see, with his passing, I was abruptly thrust in to a different, unfamiliar world.
In the first few days and weeks all I felt was numbness and was in complete denial. About two months down the road the anger and the yearning of his presence set in and I was not a pleasant person to be around with. Following this I was in emotional despair and withdrew myself from everyone and everything. In fact I travelled to Canada to be with my family during this stage but these emotions were so intense and the sadness was so great that I even shut them out and went off on my own.
That stage has made its circle now, and now I am at the point of reorganizing my life. I know that the next phase will be letting go, but as I said earlier grief does not have a time limit and does not follow any rules. So letting go, will only come when I will fall in love again.
Besides, I still miss his physical presence and I am just learning to connect with him spiritually.
Everything I learned all these months and practiced was in my face as I experienced the roller coaster ride of raw grief following my his tragic death. I found writing my thoughts and feelings in this blog helped me to deal with the reality and emotions of death which at times overwhelmed me. Continuing to want to save the world -as we had both set out to do- gave me a purpose. It also allowed Mike's presence to be preserved.
The depression was more diabolical. You see, grief is something everyone will encounter in his or her life. As with all of us that have been through it, people in my life spoke up with what I “needed to do.” No one though had any solid answers. And this is where it gets funny. When you are grieving that is all you want. Answers!
All of the advice that was given to me by good friends and even some of HellasFrappe's fans had a place in my finding my way forward, but it was not enough.
This is because I concentrated more on the memories. Thoughts of the past held me spellbound, because they were all I had left. I kept asking myself, how do I breath without him, how do I take that next step without him? I didn't want to go on and literally believed that it was easier to just lay down and die.
The biggest heartache of all was the "not knowing" where Mike went to. Is there a heaven? Is there a God? Is there an afterlife? The unknown became, and has become, my worse enemy.
All this forced me to shut down emotionally and destroyed many important relationships in my life because I chose to stop feeling.
The worse part of my depression was that I didn't even notice that my own health declined.
Aside from the physical symptoms, the blog also suffered. I was not able to write, HellasFrappe's finances worsened and traffic fell by more than 50 percent. During those months, the only thing that preoccupied my mind was why him? Why did he have to die? If only I had gotten there sooner. If only someone did something differently. If only this, if only that.
No, I was not going mad, but in a stage of deep, deep grief. When pain rules, grief brings bitterness, resentment and often isolation and it affects everything. Your health is affected, finances and your relationships with everyone are also affected. It is actually exhausting and draining because it uses up all of your reserves physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. You cannot concentrate, you cannot work and being around people feels like running up a mountain.
I was fortunate though, Mary was there, patient with so much unconditional love for me and she refused to see me give up. Being the stubborn woman she is, she did not want to see me wither and fade away. She advised me to stop suppressing my feelings and encouraged me to cry and let my tears flow openly. This frightened others and made them feel uncomfortable around me, but it was warmly welcomed by Mary.
She told me that tears were a necessity, and crying was and is unavoidable. During those moments, I allowed the grief to pour out. Yelling and screaming at the universe -and at everyone- became one of my favorite pastimes.
It was a whirlpool of sadness that threatened to suck me under its waves to a depth of despondency where I could have never resurfaced again, but Mary was patient, and knew when to hold out her hand and help me back up to the surface.
She was a God send.
Her unconditional love for me allowed each emotional storm to pass and I came out a survivor.
She, and several other important people in my life, accepted my baby steps theory, and in no time I began to feel better and began to get stronger.
I just kept telling myself, I will not allow myself to get trapped further and further in this dark world. I need to heal. And slowly I did.
I finally convinced myself that although I will carry this loss forever, how I choose to carry it will determine my own quality of life.
Today, I don't question if I can do this, if I can go on, for I am going on and didn't even notice. The depression is a thing of the past.
HellasFrappe helped, keeping myself busy helped, getting back on track health wise also helped, but do not let this fool you, I do not go without him. Mike is and will always be in my heart every moment, and every breath of the way.
I am simply at a higher level of seeing what I did not see prior to (and after) his passing. In this higher emotional state I see the world differently and feel differently about everyone and everything.
How did I get to this level?
Well it came all at once.
I simply shifted my perspective in taking care of myself (physically, financially, spiritually) and in no time the clouds began to disappear.
This is what Mike would have wanted for me.
It took me a long time to realize this, but he sent me a loud message at his one year memorial.
During the service, a white pigeon came and sat on the headstone of his grave just as the priest was getting ready to end the liturgy. The bird stared directly at me and would not move. Mike's father and brother attempted to scare it away, but it refused to move.
This unprecedented experience had a profound effect on me both emotionally and spiritually. At that moment I was in a daze over my need to reorganize my life and move forward and my grief for Mike.
I felt as though the presence of the bird was Mike's way of telling me it is time to go forward.
This made me erupt like a volcano. I wept hysterically. I went into a frenzy and thrust my hands in the air asking why.
And throughout this whole hysteria the bird would not budge, it continued to stare at me directly.
It was almost like Mike had descended and was telling not to be afraid of being happy once again.
All this time, this was my biggest fear. I was finally okay with the reorganizing my life step, and the moving forward step but I continued to feel that if I allowed myself to once again be happy then I would be betraying his memory. Somehow the bird -or Mike's spirit- made me realize that I would never betray what I feel for him because it is too strong, too unique and too powerful.
His presence was just the validation to finally move forward.
This was my journey into the land of grief, and these are lessons we can all learn from; the stories that just feel larger than all of us. I wanted this story to be told, because I know that there are many out there who will identify with every word I said.
I hope that by sharing this personal experience I can preserve Mike's life story and valuable memories for his friends and family. And at the same time be a comfort to anyone who has ever suffered loss.
After all, Mike's life has a story that can contribute to a larger population because he committed his last few years in informing the Greek Diaspora about the crisis, was a victim of it because of his cancer, but never stopped motivating me into bringing this all together in this blog.
I feel so privileged to have known him and to have loved him. I am also content in knowing that I have preserved his memory and given a voice to someone whom none of you knew.
I am also grateful to Mary Pehlavanian for not allowing me to lose myself after his loss. My Frappers, my family and my other friends also helped, but Mary bit the bullets and for this I will forever be grateful.
I may be closing the chapter titled Mike in my life but this is only to allow me to go on. Aside from filling every void in my heart, I learned many things from my 8+ years with him about love, understanding, compassion, and forgiveness. Because of this, -no matter the circumstance- I will continue to honor him every August 20th until my very last breath.
Rest in peace agapi mou... You will never be forgotten, I will make sure of that.
Thank you all for sharing this with me
Much Love
Marina Spanos
*Please make a donation to HellasFrappe by clicking on the donate button below. HellasFrappe will use a percentage of these funds to donate towards cancer research in loving memory of Mike. If not, then please make a donation to your local cancer research foundation and help them to save more lives in future. Thank you.
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