Who Am I?

Shani and I became an item when I was 25-years-old. How I pulled that off at that point in my life is still beyond me. In looking back, it’s easy to see how little I now resemble who I was back then. Of course, my growth has skyrocketed in the last year because of what I’ve had to deal with. Even before Shani’s death though, neither of us were anything like who we were 10 years before.

When we met in late 1998, I owned and operated a small personal training business in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and I’ll never forget the day Shani walked into the gym. Smitten doesn’t even come close to describing my interest in her. At the time, I had completely sworn off dating in order to focus on my business. Well, that was…until Shani walked through the door.

She was up from Florida, visiting with Zeke for the Thanksgiving holiday, and came into the gym for a workout. It was only a matter of minutes before a conversation developed, and that was that. We were off and running. She moved to Tennessee the following summer, and it was there that our adventure began. We moved to Atlanta in 2000, then to NYC in 2002, and back to Atlanta in 2004.

Our individual and collective attitudes and outlooks on life changed completely over that time. We grew tremendously in our spirituality. Shani became a full-fledged vegetarian and an animal rights activist. She elevated her yoga practice to another level and then proceeded to impose it onto me, for which I am eternally grateful. These types of life changes helped our lives settle down dramatically. Sure, like any marriage, we experienced our fair share of ups and downs during those 10 years, but we did everything together. Shani grew so much in dealing with the loss of her mother, and she became a guiding light of inspiration for so many.

I even grew up a little myself. Actually, we grew up together. Shani and I had no children of our own, and she always said that our dogs were our kids. She certainly treated them as such! We stayed together all of those years, through thick and thin, because we wanted to. It was always Mike and Shani; period. I know for a fact that neither of us could ever have imagined living our lives without the other. No matter what happened, we knew that it was us and that we could handle and fight through anything life threw at us, and we knew we would never have to do it alone.

And now, here I am, faced with exactly that.

I have noticed a shift in my grief in the few weeks since the anniversary of her death on June 2. For the longest time, I spent so much time, energy, and effort simply dealing with the shock and trauma of the way she died, while also trying to merely cope with all of the extenuating circumstances surrounding her death, like losing my job and my home that I am only now truly realizing that she’s not coming back.

This is a startling revelation.

On her birthday back on June 11, some friends and I were reminiscing and sharing our favorite “Shani-isms,” the cute quips and quotes that really defined the sweet soul that she was. I’ve started talking a lot more about the funny times we had together and the great stories I’ll always remember. Still, the thought of not having her around ever again is absolutely heartbreaking. When your wife dies and you’ve spent that much time, just the two of you, living alone together, part of you dies with her. I feel like I am missing half of me, and sometimes, even now, I don’t know where I begin and Shani ends.

I am a better person for having known her, and anyone that was fortunate enough to have her in their life has to feel the same, with the possible exception being those who ever cut her off in traffic.

I would turn back the clock in an instant to have her back, but the truth is that I don’t ever want to go back to the person I was before I met her, or even who I was the day before she died. I’ve learned more from her in her passing and connecting with her on a different level through this experience than I ever could have during our time together. We spent ten years together, but there was one thing that I never could have understood about her, but now do—how to deal with and heal from losing the one person who loved me the most in life.

I have said in the past, losing someone you love is difficult enough, but losing someone who loves you...well, let’s just say it’s completely devastating.

I am going to carry her with me forever so that more people can appreciate the person she was. They will just have to learn about her through the way I live my life. I will always miss not having her here in the physical sense. Her voice rings in my head so clearly. I remember the funny, unpredictable side of her, like her horrible Butthead impression (from the cartoon Beavis and Butthead), her hilarious Cartman impersonations from South Park, or her Elaine dance from Seinfeld (tears starting to flow as I type this). My memories of her literally take my breath, knowing I’ll never see them again.

Shani really was the best part of me, and oddly enough, that part of me has only grown since she’s been gone. At this point, though, I’m still asking myself to a large degree…

Who am I?