Trevor & Misha: A Story of Love, Fate, and Resilience
Paris and Helena. Achilles and Patroclus. Tristan and Isolde. Alexander and Hephaestion. Anthony and Cleopatra. Hadrian and Antinous. Romeo and Juliet. Gertrude and Alice. Diego and Frida.
We’re all familiar with the lore of romantic love: the mythical union of two beings whose love and commitment to each other are both unconditional and endless.
Most of us have sought to create such a narrative in our lives, too.
Yet, very few “real life” stories have all the qualities of an epic love story. That is to say, the unexpected nature of it is overwhelming, the love relation in question seems absolutely impossible due to social mores, fate interferes by separating the protagonists ... still, they find a way back together against all odds, only to fight new dragons. Together.
Enter Trevor and Misha.
They met in 1995 in Washington, D.C.. Misha, a Russian-born Frenchman, a renown scientist and researcher, with a daughter, and Trevor, Jamaican American, an Ivy League educated librarian on the rise.
They became inseparable.
As you suspected, it wasn’t only the physical attraction, but also everything else—values, intelligence, interests, conversations, goofiness, sheer companionship—that bonded these two together.
Audacious love was born.
As famous mythologist Joseph Campbell taught us, the romantic love goes beyond mere procreation. To procreate is easy, to love unconditionally is not.
If destiny has chosen for two people to meet, they will meet. What they do with the encounter, as we’ll see with our protagonists, is up to them.
Trevor and Misha had found each other.
And they became best friends in the broadest sense of that expression.
Then, the fickle Fortune interfered. A mix of “youthful folly,” fear, and some practical considerations such as immigration and job opportunities as well as their nationalities separated them.
As Trevor told me once, he let Misha return to France. They didn’t fight for each other.
Much like in Robert Frost’s famous poem, many times in life, we are faced with two roads; the question is whether we’ll take the one less traveled by?
Ultimately, Misha and Trevor did.
Instead of blaming the other, forgetting and moving on, after several years with the ocean between them, they realized that a bond like this is rare. We can keep chasing the “ideal” one, the acceptable one, or embrace the one that is ideally before us.
After all, rare people find rare ones.
They got married in France in 2014, and Misha returned to the United States soon after.
I wish this is where the story could end, with a happily ever after.
But as we know, Fortune is fickle, loving to reverse itself, and it wouldn’t be a “real life” without a few more dragons to slay.
In February 2018, Misha suffered a brain aneurysm and a doctor at one hospital left him to die.
But Misha is a fighter and Trevor was not going to lose his partner ... so a doctor at another hospital operated immediately and after five months in a rehab facility, Misha is coming home this week! (To a home they bought together weeks before the aneurysm!)
Their faith, resilience, and love has carried them through.
But today, they need our help.
Without getting into the state of healthcare system in the US, the insurance isn’t willing to cover any further rehab support for Misha and he still needs care in order to reach full recovery.
Please consider joining #TeamMisha and donating to their GoFundMe fundraiser. Every dollar will make a difference. Please share with others, too!
When describing a romantic relationship, I have always had this image of a double-helix in mind. Two beings, complimenting each other, travel together. At times one is behind the other, but ultimately they move along concurrently and intertwine in a dance of love; the dance that gives a unique flavor to this life, the rhythm that empowers us to live out the very best angels of our nature, and the path that leads to flourishing.
Trevor and Misha are that double helix.
Theirs is a story of “impossible” love that has endured and persevered, even as Fortune recoiled.
They’re what we all want. They’ve shown us that it is possible. And today, in the name of that audacious love, I hope we can all chip in to help!