While many of us will have to think back a little far to remember how graduating college felt, I’m probably not too far off in guessing that it felt like a moment of victory over the stress and uncertainly of the last four-or-so years.
But for some, that moment of triumph symbolizes a fight that’s bigger than classes and exams. It’s the moment in which they’ve overcome struggles that — be they health-related or financial — may have once made their dreams seem impossible.
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And while it’s true that many who make it across that stage had to wait patiently to get there, most didn’t have to wait over 60 years like one recent graduate in Texas.
Since the 1950s, 88-year-old Rene Neira has dreamed of earning his bachelor’s degree.
But as it often does, life got in the way.
As his granddaughter Melanie Salazar told Good Morning America, the dream was first put on hold by the fact that he fell in love and started a family, but Neira’s life only seemed to get busier from there.
That’s because when he wasn’t working at a local bank, he was working hard as an activist during the rise of the Chicano Movement in the ’60s and ’70s.
Neira was also credited for helping bolster the economy of San Antonio’s South Side during that time.
With that background, it’s not a surprise that Neira would want to pursue his degree in economics and he would get that chance in 2016 after Salazar graduated high school.
That was when they started taking classes at Palo Alto College together, but both would end up enrolling at the University of Texas at San Antonio in the following year.
Since Salazar was going for a bachelor of arts in communications, she wasn’t able to share any classes with her grandpa, but they made sure to carpool and study together.
As Salazar said, “We would get lunch together and be in the library together and just work silently side-by-side.”
Unfortunately, some concerning developments in Neira’s health would eventually throw a wrench in that arrangement.
He suffered a minor stroke shortly before the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic and took a medical leave of absence as a result, which only continued as online classes proved difficult for him to navigate.
But as Salazar was on track to earn her own degree, she and her family asked university officials if they could grant him a degree of recognition.
In her words, “We were really pushing for it because we were hoping, since his health is declining, that he could have that memory before he passes.”
And on December 11 — six days before Neira’s 88th birthday — the family got their wish and he was able to graduate alongside his granddaughter.
And while Neira was worried he would be stealing Salazar’s spotlight, she was quick to reassure him.
As she put it, “I told him, ‘This is our moment. I want to share it with you.’ I’m so proud of my grandpa and I’m so thankful I was able to have this moment, this memory, with him.”
h/t: Good Morning America