Michael Maggio (March 21, 1947-February 10, 2008)

Michael Maggio was named Washington's best immigration lawyer in 2002, based on Washingtonian magazine's interviews with lawyers, judges and clients, Mr. Maggio was known over his 30-year career for championing the rights of the underclass. He also represented large corporations, nonprofit organizations and universities.

After a loved one dies we tend, in both our memories and our stories to exaggerate their best qualities and accomplishments. With Michael Maggio it is quit the opposite. The lines above are taken from an obituary published in the Washington Post. Indeed, these are not exaggerations, they are simply facts, and they fall far short of capturing what everybody who came in contact with Michael felt.
Below is a description/story of my memories of Michael, and they will, I am sure, not do him justice. But in the absence of the man himself all we have are these stories and memories.

Michael was introduced to me by my Step-Mother as Uncle Michael (he was the Uncle of her two children) and he quickly assumed that role. He was a person like one rarely meets who genuinely cared about everyone he met from the moment he met them.

The last time I saw Michael was in 2004. I was in Georgetown. My excuse for being there was that I was interviewing at Georgetown and a number of other Universities in the DC area. The real reason I was there was because I wanted to put as much distance as possible between myself and a girl I had been engaged to in NC. I was still very much in love with her and very hurt by the way she left me.
Michael met me for lunch in a little place just below campus. When we walked in, it seemed as though everybody stopped what they were doing to say hello to him. They all knew his name and he knew theirs.
We spent an hour or so talking. Or, rather, I spent much of the hour talking. He listened. And, I mean he really listened. He really cared.
Peter Jamie Maggio, Michael’s Nephew, said that Michael was always there with words of encouragement.
This is absolutely true. He saw that I was hurting, and that I was trying to get out of a bad place and into a good one. And he believed I could and he made that very clear. He barely knew me and yet he truly believed in me.

That meeting in the restaurant in Georgetown was more then three years ago. I have moved out of NC, moved to Pennsylvania, moved from interviewing at Georgetown to attending ESU, and moved worlds away from the bad state I was in.

It was more then three years ago and yet when, on Thursday, February 7th, I heard that Michael, who had been diagnosed with Cancer in May, had only a week left to live I broke down.
I stood in between the two main academic buildings on the ESU campus and I cried.

The next few days were incredibly painful for all of Michael’s friends and family, most especially for Peter Jamie Maggio, Lena Maggio (Michael’s Mother), Candace Katter (Michael’s wife), and the other friends and family who were with Michael over the last few days of his life.

On February 10th Michael Maggio died.

Upon hearing that Michael had only a week left to live I was sure that there could be no God. There would be no sense in letting a man who had given so much die in such a painful way.
After Michael's funeral today I have never been so sure that there must be a God. It would not make sense for Michael to be anywhere now except for heaven.

Below are links to the Washington Post’s Obituary and to a blogspot page devoted to Michael’s memory:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/11/AR2008021102996.html

http://michaelamaggio.blogspot.com/