Blog 1 – This I Believe… by Maive Bellios
My yiayia (grandmother in Greek) and I had often talked about how she was going to be at my graduation. She wanted to see me accomplish that more than anything. I too was excited for her to be there for me. On graduation day when I looked up into the crowd she would be there. That was the one day she looked forward to, we always talked about it and got so excited. She told me how she wanted to see me graduate because she never had that opportunity herself. My Yiayia immigrated from Greece and since she never got to graduate, I was so excited for her to see me walk in my cap and gown.
As I mentioned my yiayia was an immigrant from Greece. She came to the United States specifically to marry my papou (grandfather in Greek). They exchanged letters and photos for a few months and then he asked her to come to America. She agreed and left her family for a new start. They were married in 1963 in Ashtabula, Ohio. They moved to Erie, Pennsylvania in 1968 to raise their family. In Erie, my yiayia immersed herself in the community. She was very involved in the church and countless other organizations. She was a seamstress, a baker, a tireless volunteer, and a friend to anyone in need. She traveled all over the world and squeezed more out of life than you could ever imagine. Unfortunately, our plans of her seeing me graduate soon changed when she got sick a couple of years ago. She had been battling congestive heart failure for many years, which made her very weak and unable to do all the things that she wanted.
In the spring of 2016, there were so many things I wanted to be doing and should have been doing with my life and with my summer. I was a rising senior, with daily cross country practices, academic responsibilities, and friends to make memories with. But instead, for weeks, I stayed at my grandparent’s house every night to keep my papou company. Each day we would get up at around 6:30 to go to the hospital where my yiayia was. She had been hospitalized because she was getting really weak, to the point where she often needed to be in the hospital, and before that she was in and out of the hospital frequently. But when I say my yiayia was the life of the party I am not kidding. Whenever she walked into the room she just lit it up, her smile, her quirky fashion sense, and her super radiant personality was always a hit.
My grandmother passed away on June 29 of that year. When she died it really took a toll on our family. She was the matriarch and the glue that kept our family close and connected. My papou now seemed lost and continued to mourn the loss of his lifelong companion and close to a year later passed away as well, his heart was broken. His life truly revolved around her. As she got older he had to drive her everywhere, he laid her pills out every morning, did the cleaning, but they sure kept each other company. After she passed he was lonely and waited for people to check up on him. I called him every day, if I missed a day he worries about me because I make sure I talk to him each day. He also upgraded to an iPhone, so that was an interesting task, to teach my 83-year-old grandfather how to use it. Things like that kept him occupied and took his mind off of his loneliness. But I can never get over how lost he was without and how he simply couldn’t go back to his normal way of life without her. I realize I never want to be like that, as touching as it is I never want to regret the things I failed to do, I want to be content with the good things I did in this life.
My point in sharing all of this is that this woman did everything, there wasn’t one event she didn’t make an appearance at, one family dinner she didn’t cook, and one phone call she didn’t answer. She experienced life to it’s fullest potential. I model my life after hers. She embodies everything I want and hope to be. After she died I came up with a little acronym that is WWYD (what would yiayia do). Every time I come to a crossroad or have a difficult decision to make, I ask this to myself and I find comfort and strength through her actions.
This is why I believe that every life experience makes you stronger and to live with no regrets. I had a choice when they both passed, I could’ve been sad and upset and blamed the world for making this happen to me or I could look at it in a different way and learn from this and embrace it. I learned so many life lessons from this.
I realized I’m stronger than I think I am. I learned to savor every moment with the people you love. I learned to be patient. I learned things about myself that I was unaware of prior to this. I had countless conversations with myself that led me to find new things out about my identity. Finally, I learned who I truly am.
