Watching your children graduate – be it high school or college – is truly an unforgettable milestone moment as a parent.
Anyone who’s experienced it will surely recall the bursting pride, the untapped joy that comes from seeing your not-so-little one close out a chapter in their lives wherein they’ve worked so hard to achieve a specific goal.
Those positive feelings must have been ten-fold for Texas dad Dennis Roach in 2018, as his daughter’s high-school graduation gave him the opportunity to recreate a photo taken back in 2000 – and the result was enough to warm hearts all over the world…
When Dennis graduated high school in 2000, he was lucky enough to have his infant daughter, Tori, present for the celebrations. At the time, the pair posed for a photo in which Dennis gave his little girl a kiss – the perfect keepsake reminder of his big day.
Fast forward to 2018, and it was Tori Roach’s turn to mark the moment when she finished high school. Needless to say, Dennis was there to share the milestone, and the pair had the brilliant idea of recreating the photo they
In the new version, Tori lay across her father’s arms as he once again kissed her cheek. She uploaded a side-by-side image – with the pictures from 2000 and 2018 – to Twitter, but no one could have guessed just how well it would be received by people online.
“18 years later,” Tori captioned her post. It soon went viral, accumulating almost 150,000 likes and 57,000 reposts.
The comments field was filled with people expressing their joy at the photo.
“Ugh this is just the sweetest,” one person wrote.
Another added: “One of the best pictures I have seen … I wish you and your family the best of luck.”
“Wow lovely…” a third said.
Yet arguably the most fascinating element of the two photos was the detail a lot of people spotted and couldn’t help but comment on. Namely, the fact that Tori’s dad Dennis doesn’t appeared to have aged at all in the intervening years between when the two photos were snapped.
“How old is your father,” mused one person. “He looks ageless.”
“I think you froze your father until you grow up,” another joked.
“Damn did you dad age any?” a third quipped.
Tori couldn’t believe the attention her post received, and was later forced to clarify that her dad, aged 37 at the time of her high school graduation, wasn’t single.
Furthermore, she spoke to People of Dennis’s pride.
“I woke up and I had a ton of notifications. People had started sharing and liking and commenting all over again. My dad was really proud. We’re from a small town, so nothing like this really ever happens. And he was like, ‘That’s so cool!’”
She added: “It brought me and my dad closer in a way because we could share that moment, and I feel that not many other people get to experience that.”
Such a heartwarming story of the obvious love between a father and his daughter. If you found this story interesting, check out the secret Michael Jordan’s been hiding his entire life that was recently revealed by his children!
Florida mom gives birth to rare set of identical twins with Down syndrome
Identical twins are a miracle all by themselves. Births like this happen three or four times in 1000.
Savannah Combs, a first time mother, learned she was carrying twins. She and her husband were overjoyed by the thought of welcoming two babies.
Everything went well with the pregnancy and the couple learned they were expecting girls. However, they also learned that their identical twins both had Down Syndrome. The news came as a shock at first, but Savannah, 23, soon realized that the condition only meant that her girls would be super special. She didn’t mind they would be born with the syndrome. Of course, she was aware that there would be people who wouldn’t accept her bundles of joy, but that didn’t concern her a great deal.
“It’s very rare what they have, but they’ve been my little gems,” the proud mother told News4JAX.
Once the girls were born, Savannah and her husband Justin decided to share their journey on TikTok. The two tiny beauties, Kennadi Rue and Mckenli gained a number of followers on the social media where Savannah posted about each of the milestones they reached.
In one of the videos she shared on TikTok, Savannah revealed how doctors advised her to terminate her pregnancy because the chances of her girls to survive were slim, but she decided to give them a fighting chance. As it turned out, she did the right thing. ”Every [prenatal] appointment they were alive was a blessing to me,” Savannah explained.
They were born five weeks prematurely and had to spend some time at the NICU. Today, they are nine months old and thriving. In fact, they are just like any other baby out there.
“They’re called mono di twins, meaning that they had their own sacs, but they shared the same placenta, meaning that they were going to be identical,” Savannah explained.
“Mo di twins as it is, it’s like very rare. And then you throw Down syndrome on top of it, it’s like one in 2 million.”
“They have feelings. They have a beating heart. They know how to talk. They know how to do things you do. They will get there,” she added. “Like I said, it may be a step behind but they’re going to do it. I’ve learned these kids are feisty little things and happy little things.”
She loves showing the world that having Down Syndrome doesn’t necessarily mean the life of those people is in any way affected negatively.
“I’m going to let them know that they’re just like us and they’re going to get there as long as they put their minds to it.”
Of course, there are always those who post negative comments and judge Savannah for keeping her babies.
”I wouldn’t want those babies; if mine came out like that, they would be straight up for adoption,” one person wrote under one of the videos. However, this mother had just the right answer for the mean person. “I said, good thing they weren’t born to you and were born to me. God knew what he was doing by giving these babies to the right parents who would love them regardless,” Savannah replied.
These girls are truly happy for having a mom like Savannah who wants to raise awareness about Down Syndrome and teach the world that those who have it can lead a happy and fulfilling lives, just like her two beautiful angels.
For more on this family’s beautiful life story go to the video below.
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