Granddaughter and 88-year-old grandfather celebrate graduation of a lifetime together

For 23-year-old Melanie Salazar, the say­ing of life long learn­ing can def­i­nite­ly be said for Salazar and her 88-year-old grand­pa who grad­u­at­ed togeth­er from the Uni­ver­si­ty of San Anto­nio Texas.

It has been a dream for Rene Neira since the 1950s to receive a bach­e­lor’s degree. His dream was put on pause due to his ded­i­ca­tion to rais­ing his fam­i­ly and work­ing grave­yard shifts through­out the years. It wasn’t until sev­en decades lat­er, Neira’s grand­daugh­ter inspired him to revive his dream and enroll in his first semes­ter at Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas San Anto­nio.

Neira attend­ed a few class­es and seemed like his dream of a degree was on the right path. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, Neira faced new strug­gles of his health and strug­gled to under­stand the tech­nol­o­gy of remote class­es.

Salazar made it her mis­sion to ful­fill his dream of get­ting a col­lege degree and asked that uni­ver­si­ty offi­cials for any type of praise for her grand­fa­ther.

The uni­ver­si­ty agreed and award­ed Neira with a degree of recog­ni­tion for his efforts. It was thanks to them that Salazar received her bach­e­lor of arts in com­mu­ni­ca­tions along­side her grand­pa who received a degree of recog­ni­tion in eco­nom­ics at the same grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny!

Writ­ten By: Des­ti­nee Mon­drag­on