Scholarship keeps memory alive
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—Victor Hugo
So reads the inscription beneath the tree on the chapel walk. Nestled among the flowers, it remembers Michaela d’Afflisio, a young woman finding her possibilities in life.
In 2002, Michaela, then a freshman at Loyola, traveled home to New Jersey to see ing at home with her father, Ted, and her mother, Denise, Michaela went up to her room. That night, she died of an epileptic convulsion.
This family tragedy had a profound effect on her parents and brother, Philip, as well as their large circle of family and friends. In the fervent wish to keep her dream alive, those who loved Michaela created a scholarship in her name for Loyola students needing financial assistance. The Michaela d’Afflisio Endowed Scholarship lends support to one undergraduate student each year. The tree planted for Michaela near Madonna della Strada Chapel on the Lake Shore Campus serves as a living tribute.
School of Social Work senior Sarah Guidone will complete her degree this year thanks in part to the d’Afflisio scholarship. Guidone, who has been taking classes for six years—four of which were as a part-time student working full time—is fully aware of the generosity of this family and the honor of being named this year’s scholar.
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“I have been supporting myself since I was 18, and it was difficult to go to school while working full time,” says Guidone, of Northbrook. “I am so thankful for this money, because I was worried about living expenses. When I learned I was getting this scholarship, I visited Michaela’s tree. It was so emotional—learning about her story and visiting her tree. The gift was just what I needed to move forward.”
For Michaela’s family, though the heartache of losing their daughter will never subside, they take consolation in knowing they are helping other young people pursue their dreams.
“We wanted to make sure Michaela’s time at Loyola was not forgotten, that she was not just a breeze that passed through the campus where she longed to be,” says Ted d’Afflisio. “To me, when she came home from Christmas break that year, she was a transformed person,”
he says. “Her time at Loyola, brief as it was, made her grow up intellectually. I could see she was different. She was just beginning to blossom as a human being.
“Michaela would have loved the idea of the scholarship,” he continues. “She could leave something to other people who can do a job that she couldn’t.”
Michaela had wanted to work with children in need. Now, through the scholarship created in her memory, many others will be enabled to do that work in her stead.