Finding a Family

For many years, Illeana Chivescu and her son Alex Chivescu were all each other had in the world in a supporting, loving environment. Romanian immigrants, Illeana and her husband moved to Michigan to attend Michigan College. They divorced leaving Illeana to raise Alex on her own since he was two, with her husband, Alex's father, no longer in the picture. Despite the obstacles, she was able to obtain her Ph.D. and go on to academic work herself, she fostering a love of learning in Alex, who had vowed, at age ten at the time of her graduation, to attend the best university, namely Harvard. But their lives took a major change when Illeana was involved in a car accident, the head trauma which resulted in her with bipolar disorder. While she required medication to deal with the disorder, it in turn had severe side effects which made her mind foggy, the result being that she was damned if she did and damned if she didn't to remain functional. This led to her going in and out of hospital, she treating Alex abusively when she was at home, and Alex going in and out of foster care. Despite the upheaval, Alex was still able to retain his perfect 4.0 GPA. Now sixteen years old and a junior at Eagle Creek High School, Alex feels that beyond his home life, he has found a supportive school environment to lead him into that goal of Harvard in just over a year. As such, Alex takes extraordinary measures to ensure that he stays in that supportive environment. The questions become whether those measures, if he is able to obtain what he wants, will be all that he thinks they will be, and how much he is willing to forgo voluntarily all in that singular focus of Harvard.—Huggo