One well-deserved award

Harper and I are making progress! Yesterday morning he guided me downtown to teach my memoir class for senior citizens at the Chicago Cultural Center. We made it back and forth safely, and he didn’t cower once. “Attaboy, Harper!” Later that afternoon I had him guide me to Michigan Avenue to the pool where I swim. No problem. “Good dog, Harper! Way to go!”

Our successes yesterday make me feel confident about heading to Union Station with Harper this afternoon. We’re taking a train down to Champaign again, this time for a very, very happy occasion: my young friend Sandra Murillo won an award!

Loyal blog readers know about Sandra Murillo – she lost her sight when she was three and has always attended regular public schools. I met Sandra when she was still in high school – I interviewed her for a Chicago Tribune story exploring how kids who are blind are educated in the public school system. Sandra is a very impressive young woman – she’s bilingual, a great writer, sweet, smart, and funny, too. The thing that impressed me most about Sandra when I first met her, though? Her math skills! From my Tribune article:

In geometry, however, learning can be far more complicated. Using raised line drawings to read graphics, push pins and rubber bands to form angles, and special paper and pens to create diagrams, Sandra is managing a 96% in geometry so far.

Sandra and I have kept in touch ever since that article came out. We talk a lot about writing – she’s known for years that she wants to be a journalist, and she is getting A’s and B’s (mostly A’s, actually!) at the University of Illinois. The award she won will help pay her tuition next year so she can continue pursuing her degree. An email from Maureen Gilbert at U of I’s Disability Resources and Educational Services (DRES) described the award:

The James E. Seybold Scholarship was created by his mother to provide financial support to students with disabilities who are pursuing degrees in the College of Media. As a soldier in the U.S. Army, James E. Seybold became disabled as a result of injuries sustained during the Korean War. He enrolled in the University of Illinois to pursue a degree in communications and journalism and was extremely grateful for the services provided by the Division of Disability Resources and Educational Services which led to his successful career with the Paralyzed Veterans of America.

It’s hard to think of anyone more deserving of this award then Sandra Murillo. She had to draw on her own bravery and courage after surviving a terrible car crash on her way home for Thanksgiving Break during her first semester at the University of Illinois. Sandra’s father was critically injured in the accident, but thankfully he survived. Sandra’s beloved brother — and only sibling — Chris died at the scene. Sandra walked away with minor injuries. Well, minor physical injuries. The emotional injuries are, of course, more serious.

Award-winner Sandra Murillo.

Working through grief is unbelievably difficult. Sandra did not return to school until January, when she completed the finals she had missed and took on a whole new load of Spring semester classes. She made the Dean’s List.

When Sandra returned home for the summer, some people told her mother that the crash must have been easier on Sandra, her being blind and all. The reason she’d done so well in school that Spring was because she hadn’t experienced severe trauma, they said. “After all, Sandra couldn’t see what was going on.”

This attitude bothered Sandra so much that she struck up her courage and shared some of her own personal thoughts about the accident in a post here last August. I called the post Sandra the Survivor, and she definitely deserves that title.

I am so very, very proud of Sandra, and so impressed with Disability Resources and Educational Services at the University of Illinois for choosing her as the recipient of this award. I can’t wait to get to Champaign and give Sandra a big hug at the ceremony tonight.

All aboard!