What the Heck is a Mekitho, Anyway?

I'm sure that more than one of you are curious... what the heck is a mekitho? Why so covert? Clandestine even? Why don't I just use my name? Ah HA! It IS my name. It's pretty clever, if I do say so myself. Although, I do wonder sometimes, if I have to explain it to people, is it really all that clever? Like, if you tell a joke and have to spell out the punchline for people, is it really all that funny of a joke? Oh well, too late. The website has been launched, the business cards made... no turning back, amiright?

So let's start with the "tho" part. It's just short for Thomas. Pretty simple. It's the "Meki" part that I think is pretty special. It's my "Greek" name. No, not for real Greek. But family Greek, if that makes sense. See, I met this wonderful, fantastic, amazing, magnificent, and unbelievably loving family of Greeks years and years ago when I was still in high school. They owned this restaurant in the small Georgia town where I grew up. I fell in love with them all. Over the years I went from regular customer to friend to employee to family member. If the Kalloniatis family had not come into my life, I know for a fact that I would not be the person that I am today.

Kostas, the patriarch, used to spell and pronounce my name "Meki." Made sense, Maggie's not a name you find in his homeland. I loved it. It was my special little thing with my Greek dad. His thick Greek accent, his funny way of joking around with us all... but it was ME he called Meki, no one else.

And then, completely out of the blue, in 2009, Kostas passed away. Unexpected. Unforeseen. Everyone's life stopped. Our second father was gone. How were we supposed to continue on? I immortilized him the best way I knew how. I had "Meki" tattooed on me. That's my ankle in that picture.

No one else has ever called me Meki but Kostas. It wasn't my nickname, or anything. It just means so much to me. It's in my heart.

So yeah, Mekitho. Good stuff, man.