The loss of College of Arts and Sciences sophomore Michael DeVito Thursday has proven anything but easy for friends, family members and the Boston University community.
Memorials and remembrance sessions around campus have provided an outlet for students to remember times they shared with Michael and reflect on his life.
Many students remember him as a good friend, a hard-working student and a fun-loving person who always helped others but asked for nothing in return.
In an interview with The Daily Free Press, DeVito’s father, Daniel, said his son loved life, was always positive and always wanted to bring out the best in people.
“Michael was truly an angel. He was angelic in every sense of the word. He never, ever had anything but a smile on his face,” he said. “He never worried about himself. Michael was truly about what life should be.”
DeVito said he saw in his son what the world should be.
“He was completely color-blind; he was completely religious blind, completely blind to anything other than what was good in people. Never once did he turn anybody away,” he said.
He also said Michael was a music lover.
“By the time he was seven, he probably knew most of the words to most of the Beatles’ songs,” DeVito said. “We used to take long trips and I would put CDs in the car and sing Beatles songs together.”
DeVito said one of Michael’s happiest moments was at a Paul McCartney concert they went to when Michael was a teen.
“He turned around in the middle of the concert and literally jumped on my neck and gave me a big hug and said, “Dad I love you, and this is the best thing that anyone could ever do for their child,'” he said.
DeVito said his son was very much into music and arts in high school, as well as physical fitness. He loved to draw, and spent one summer in an arts program at Pace University in New York.
“He was just incredibly talented and was a great student. Both sides of his brain worked, and he was so into music and art,” he said. “If you look at his iPod, it had everything from Andrea Bocelli to the Beatles to Jay-Z or the latest rap artist. His music taste was eclectic.”
Several friends and family members remembered Michael’s love of dancing.
“He was an incredible, naturally talented dancer, not in the professional sense, but we have a clip of him dancing like Michael Jackson,” DeVito said. “Everybody wanted to dance with Michael because he was so incredibly naturally gifted.”
Outside of classes and activities with the Sigma Chi fraternity, DeVito said Michael loved to play softball and touch football with friends at BU.
He remembered a recent anecdote involving a game of golf Michael played with his older brother Daniel, 22, a student at Northeastern University. DeVito said Michael finally accomplished something he always wanted to: he beat his brother in a round of golf.
“So his life was definitely fulfilled,” he said. “We love to play golf . . . he would say how great it was to be out with both of us on the golf course.”
Michael also has an older sister, Alexa, 21, who is a student at Manhattan College in Riverdale, N.Y.
“The three of them are only 27 months apart, so they literally grew up together,” he said.
“If I had to sum Michael up, the best thing I could tell you is that no matter who you were or where you spoke to him, he ended every conversation with saying “I love you.’ I think that really speaks volumes for who he was,” DeVito said.
DeVito said the university has been incredibly supportive and have done everything possible to support the family, and they deeply appreciate it.
“Burying a son is probably the hardest thing a parent ever has to go through,” he said. “Especially an angelic son.”
CAS sophomore Jason Kaplan was a friend of Michael’s and said news of his sudden passing was an immediate shock about which he was at first in denial.
“It’s awful what happened,” he said. “It’s been a slow process for all of us, accepting that it’s true.”
Kaplan said he met Michael here at BU, though they lived only two blocks apart in their shared hometown of Rye, N.Y. He said Michael wore many hats in the sense that he could always fit in. He was everyone’s best friend, Kaplan said, and he was always the “uniter” and the doer.
“He brought a lot of us closer together, and although he is gone, the things he always did for us he will continue to do,” he said.
Kaplan said he knew this was true on Sunday when a service was held in Michael’s honor at Marsh Chapel.
“I was sitting there and this wind kept blowing in my face and it wouldn’t stop,” he said. “I just knew that was him telling us that we should be watching the Super Bowl instead of crying.”
Kaplan said Michael is someone who will always have an effect on others’ lives.
Zach Monash knew Michael during their freshman year at BU. He said in an email that Michael “was a fantastic kid.”
“He was really a great guy,” he said. “He was funny, showed love to everyone in his life, and was loved by everyone around him,” he said. “I know people tend to glorify people who have passed, but he really was one of the most loved people I knew at BU.
“He’s really irreplaceable. He made an impact on everyone’s life, even those who weren’t close with him.”
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