Recent UR grad pens an award-winning essay about reconnection and grief
Student Experience
Isabella Tomé demonstrated her writing talent in an essay that earned her the 2025 George Matthews Modlin Award for Student Book Collections. The award, established in 1971, is presented annually to a senior who curates a creative, focused collection from their printed books, manuscripts, zines, and/or ephemera, which they must then describe in no more than 1,500 words. Collections can be organized by theme, author, illustrator, publisher, printing technique, binding style, or some other articulated theme.
“It was the personal nature of Isabella’s collection that drew each of us to it. Her inspiration and reason to collect touched the committee members, who each selected it as their top choice,” said Lynda Kachurek, head of Book Arts, Archives and Rare Books at Boatwright Memorial Library. “Her essay was the epitome of what the spirit of the award is all about.”
In Tomé’s essay, she wrote: “These works whisper in our ears: Here is how others rebuilt their ruins. Here is how you will rebuild your life.”
Optimism isn’t just about ignoring the darkness. It’s about learning to see the cracks where the light gets in,” her father told her.
The books in her collection, including Educated by Tara Westover, The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion, and The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, are works that captured Tomé’s journey to reconnect with her estranged father.
Turning the page
“The Glass Castle reframed my separation from my dad, not as a void, but as a space where forgiveness could grow,” she said.
In her sophomore year, Tomé’s father reached out to her. While he had always left the door open, she hadn't spoken to him in nearly 10 years. She decided it was time and called him back. They ended up talking for hours that day.
They later met up at a diner. She remembers looking into his eyes and realizing they looked just like hers. “When I first saw him, he felt like a stranger because of all the time that had passed, but seeing those familiar eyes just made all the awkwardness fade away. We talked about so much that day,” she said.
Agostinho Tomé was diagnosed with Grade 4 glioblastoma, a cancerous brain tumor, in February 2023, just a few months after their first phone call.
As his health declined, she traveled back and forth between Richmond and New York as often as possible to see him.“My stepmom told me he’d skip around the house whenever we talked or when he knew I was coming to visit. It was just this simple, genuine happiness,” Tomé said.
As her father entered hospice, she drew inspiration from neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi, who wrote about finding meaning amidst his own terminal cancer diagnosis in When Breath Becomes Air.
Into the light
“Optimism isn’t just about ignoring the darkness. It’s about learning to see the cracks where the light gets in,” her father told her, later inspiring the title of her essay, “The Collected Light.”
That summer, he passed away. While Tomé said his death was the hardest thing she’s ever had to go through, she is grateful for their time together. “It felt good to know that even with all the years apart, we could still find real joy in being a part of each other’s lives again, even if it was only for a short while,” she said.
Tomé, who majored in psychology and minored in health studies, will begin a doctoral program in clinical psychology this fall. She is currently working on her memoir.
Her name will be added to the list of winners of the George Matthews Modlin Award for Student Book Collections, on display in the library.
When Kachurek gave her the prize, she told the young collector that some of the judges had also lost their fathers when they were young, and her essay touched them. “That meant so much to me. It’s one thing to win an award, but it’s another to know your story connected with people,” Tomé said. “That’s the best part for me, realizing that writing can bring people together like that.”