The global coronavirus pandemic has turned people’s lives topsy turvy and some live in states that are still ordered to stay at home. That makes it impossible to celebrate seniors’ graduations, a very important milestone in their lives.
Whether it’s a college graduate or a high school graduate, walking across that stage and receiving a diploma culminates the hard work put into schooling. For high school seniors, the virus and its implications means they’ve missed prom, senior trips, graduation and their celebratory open houses.
Graduating college students won’t grace the stage at the university where they’ve spent years cementing their future with a hard-earned degree.
Many high schools and colleges have held virtual ceremonies; yet others are holding out hope that they can celebrate their graduates with an in-person ceremony later this summer.
Not only are the students heartbroken at missing out on this major milestone, but parents are sympathizing with their kiddos and trying to find ways to make amends. Some parents have created and hung banners of their high school seniors around town.
Others have created videos of their students and shared those on social media. School districts have printed off and planted yard signs on their students’ properties to help them celebrate.
Even the Obamas compiled a heartfelt message for the class of 2020 to show them support.
But even these ideas just weren’t enough for Torrence Burson. His darling daughter Gabrielle Piece, a student from Xavier University in Louisiana, was set to receive her diploma in biology with an emphasis on pre-medicine.
Gabrielle was quite distraught over not being able to graduate, to rejoice in achieving this huge accomplishment with her classmate and friends.
“Initially I was upset. I was crying. It took me like a week to stop crying. I really wanted to walk, I felt like I needed to walk.”
Well Dad was not going to sit idly by and not console his daughter. Nope.
This dad known by his loved ones for his over-the-top gestures stunned his baby girl with his idea for celebrating her accolades.
“I went to bed and woke up in the middle of the night and said, ‘That’s it. I’m just going to have the graduation here.'”
Torrence explained to his daughter that he wasn’t about to let her miss out.
“After all those years, you’re going to walk across somebody’s stage if I have to build you one myself.”
And that’s exactly what he did!
Torrence constructed a graduation stage smack dab in his driveway. He set up loudspeakers that blared the symbolic graduation march and he even printed off a program of the day’s events.
He arranged for an invocation, a welcome speech and the playing of Whitney Houston’s version of the National Anthem.
“Gabrielle graduated from Southwind High School in 2015 with the ambition to attend the illustrious Xavier University of Louisana to achieve a degree in biology pre-medicine. During her junior year of college, she decided to go into another direction in medicine by deciding to go into public health science for epidemiology.”
How ironic that Gabrielle changed gears to focus on epidemiology before the global pandemic.
“After all the trials and tribulations she went through, she completed college with 130 credit hours. She now plans to join the Armed Forces to accomplish her end goal of working for the CDC.”
Passersby who caught a glimpse of Gabrielle’s homemade and heartfelt graduation ceremony couldn’t help but honk their support as they drove by. Torrence and Gabrielle both got a kick out of others’ responses.
“It was just amazing. Better than the actual graduation, because it was more personal.”
This was so beautiful way to go to the graduate and dad🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼
— Vernell Dix (@4evablsd64) May 15, 2020
If he had to do it all over again, Torrence said he would do it in a heartbeat — with some surprising tweaking.
“We love our daughter this much. Regardless of the dollar figure, what it took to pull this off. If I had to do this over again, I’d probably do it even bigger.”
When Xavier University of Louisiana alum Jeremy Pierre with Fox 13 caught wind of Gabrielle’s situation, he just had to give her a shout out. People on Twitter agreed that what Torrence did was amazing!
“…what a blessing to have a dad like that.”
“This young lady will never forget what her dad did to make her graduation special. Congratulations to them both!”
Watch Torrence share his surprise for Gabrielle in the video below. What an amazing gesture!
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