This is a piece I wanted to write for some time now. Ever since I took the photo above the phrase ‘’A Season Of Light’’ stuck in my head. There are several reasons for it and I will try my best to explain this as accurately yet as briefly as I can.
I believe This Never Happened: 2022 Retrospective but also Sultan + Shepard — DJ Set — The Peak of Topanga, CA playlists will help with this.
The Past Three Years
These past three years haven’t been easy for anyone. I believe this to be true for potentially every single person on the planet in one form or another. Starting with a pandemic that shook the world to its core stretching all the way to the war in Ukraine. A vision of million deaths (Covid + war), economies being in a ‘’permacrisis’ due to food shortages, energy price spikes, ever-present supply chain issues and of course household testing inflation.
Yet as all these things happened I found myself on a deeply personal journey. Probably the most important in my life.
In September 2019 I moved to London, after spending a year in Nicosia to pursue a career in health and wellness. At the same time my family, living in Greece, and most specifically my mother had started to notice certain changes in her body that were not easy to ignore anymore. (She first caught a glimpse of those physical changes a year earlier, in August 2018 right before I moved to Cyprus).
Her ability to speak was deteriorating by the day and her ability to bite, chew, and swallow was getting affected due to what was later diagnosed as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
As the pandemic hit I found myself between London and Greece, spending the better part of spring and summer in my hometown and returning to London in August 2020.
During that time many other issues arose. A 10k loss on paying six months of rent in advance at the beginning of March (I loved Kensington, but not that much), not being able to work properly in a field I believed held my future and of course my relationship with my ex-girlfriend being affected because of long-distance, family issues on either side, lockdowns, and more.
As vaccines were manufactured and things started to look less blight I was at crossroads. It is December 2020, London just went into lockdown again and I have just flown to Greece to quarantine and spend the holidays with my family. I remember taking long walks [the only form of going out we were allowed at the time (as part of personal exercise allowance)] to think about the future. My mother, arguably the person I loved most in life, was getting worse, and my plans for a bright career in London were looking less and less bright (a mix of Covid, unluckiness, and a reality check of what it means to live abroad). My relationship not being an unaffected part was in a tainted line.
After a few months of deep introspection, long nights, and probably a few thousand tears I decided to return to Greece. As a family, we had accepted what our mother’s condition was, had educated ourselves on what the disease could do to a person and all tried to make her life as full, happy, and easy as possible.
It is important to note here that I stand by the phrase that ‘’a person’s true character shines brightly before they die’’. My mom faced hardship every day and eventually, death, not only with a smile but also hope for something better.
Hope.
Even when her lips couldn’t move anymore, her breath was getting shallower, had to be fed by a tube and her legs couldn’t move as easily.
She had hope.
Can you imagine the will that someone like that has?
Isn’t that what being human really is?
‘’How can I be anything less’’ I think to myself.
In June 2021 I returned to Greece to be with my parents, help my mother in any way I could and rekindle my relationships with friends and acquaintances.
The most important lesson I learned after spending 3 years abroad is that human relationships are the most valuable thing we have. I always knew that and deeply valued that, but I would now characterize my understanding (then) as superficial, compared to now. Being alone in London, seeing the effects of lockdowns in a foreign country, not being able to share my experiences and places with people I loved simply broke the dream for me. The place doesn’t matter as much as the people you share it with. I know priorities play a role, your career, your goals, and aspirations are extremely valuable but coming from a very individualistic POV I now know much more profoundly that as important as your own self is, the people around you are as important. That is not only because of what they bring into your life but also as to how fulfilled you feel by achieving those goals and having those material possessions.
What good is a big house if I cannot share it with my friends and throw a big party?
Upon my return, I applied for the MBA International and decided to finally pursue what I was long interested in. Business and the creation of value for human society through that front. In the past, I always poked at this realization through my own ventures. From recording self-help YouTube videos when I was still in high school to create an online website called Papers Of Thought in 2016, to establishing Synthesis Health & Wellness in London I always loved business and entrepreneurship. But what I loved, even more, was self expression and I believe that business projects can be a uniquely creative way of expressing one’s self in also a uniting way (teams coming together to provide value to the world).
Having said that I now had the maturity to understand that an education at this was needed. I soon realized that half of the program was the relationships and network that you established. And boy was I lucky in meeting my fellow students and most importantly my Team 9 friends at the orientation project for the start of the 2021–2022 cohort. Choosing this program, returning to Greece, and doing all the things I have done was probably the wisest decision I made in a long time. As much as I have at times regretted leaving Greece back in 2018 (for a number of different reasons) deep down I know that no amount of material possessions could have forged my character the way these experiences and realizations have.
Dealing With Death
In February 2022 my mother passed away from complications in her breathing apparatus, a common end for ALS patients. The doctors told us that she died in her sleep due to lack of oxygen. Because of hospital restrictions, we were not able to be by her side at that time. I am thankful that my father was with her before she fell asleep that night and was able to tell her goodnight. I only hope that she didn’t struggle in her sleep and simply passed away peacefully.
At this point in the article, I believe I shouldn’t spend too much time as to how I have dealt with grief in this past year or the effect my mother’s death has had on me. I believe I could potentially write a book about this and wouldn’t do the matter justice if I were to compartmentalize what losing your mother feels like in a short paragraph, here.
Yet I will say that my mother’s condition, despite the pain that it brought to our family also brought us together like nothing ever did. Not only to each other but also to ourselves. Her example as well as the example of millions of other people who are dealing with this soul-crushing disease (or any other serious disease for that matter) shine bright for what the human spirit can endure in the face of adversity. We are all much more capable than we think we are. You don’t have to be faced with the potentiality of a life-ending condition to start pursuing your dreams whether that is in your personal development, your career, your goals, or the relationships you want to have. Life is so valuable and we get a chance to live it and mold it every single day. So do yourself and everyone close to you a favor and try to become the best version of yourself. Or be there for someone who needs you. It is the best thing you can do. Period.
Regaining Hope
In April, a few months after my mother’s funeral I am walking down the stairs of Euaggelismos Metro Station in Athens. I suddenly get this strong sensation in my chest that I haven’t felt in a long time. I’m listening to one of my favorite tracks, introspecting and I simply start to feel optimistic again.
Hopeful.
Even though I am still crying every night, I start to realize that the long dark veil of pain and sadness that was all over me, since I saw my mother choke on food two years ago, was starting to slowly disappear and my self was regaining its ability to be optimistic about the future again. Surely if measured my physiology could also showcase tangible hormonal and biological changes.
Throughout the year I have used many different tools to channel my grief and sorrow. While happiness gives height, sorrow does give depth as the controversial figure Osho famously said. And that sorrow has fueled my creativity in ways I could never imagine before.
Creativity and its expression through connections in audio, visuals, symbols, and art have been paramount in dealing with grief this year. So as I walk with one of my best friends in the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center earlier this month and stand on the edge of the artificial lake and get ready to take the photo everything comes together and I realize it.
This is now the Season of Light.
Not only because it’s Christmas (famously the season of light in culture and myth), not only because the whole SNFCC has light as its central theme around the park (with light rodes, photography light rings, and also bulbs in all the trees in the lake). Not even because it’s night time and usually we use light to be able to see each other.
No.
It is because finally and quite hopefully, after three years of grief, pain, and sorrow, after three years of constant hardships, this is going to be a season of light. Not only for myself but for everyone.
Happy New Year,
Marios