How to be a good father to a daughter? Well it seems in this story we have that answer for you!
Graduation season has come once again, and students everywhere are sharing photos of their milestones and proudest moments. But these sweet pictures of a father and daughter stood above them all, and are making waves in social media once again after it went viral in 2018.
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Tori Roach graduated from Huntsville High School in Texas during May of last year. Taking the occasion as the perfect time to honor her father, she shared on Twitter a throwback shot of her dad during his own graduation in the same school. The photo showed him carrying little baby Tori in his arms as he plants a kiss on her cheek.
Alongside that picture, the 19-year-old shared a recreated version of that photo from 18 years ago. Again, her father carried her in his arms like a baby and planted a kiss on her cheek.
It was definitely a nostalgic moment, and judging from the smile on her face, it looks like Tori’s father knew just how to be a good father to a daughter.
She captioned the post “18 years later” alongside a graduation cap and green heart emojis.
Her post immediately went viral and amassed thousands of retweets!
With the huge amount of attention that the photos were getting, Tori wanted to clarify one thing.
She wrote in a follow-up tweet: “For everyone asking, yes this is my dad, he’s 37, and no he isn’t single. I have another sibling on the way.”
Tori felt overwhelmed by the response that her simple tweet got.
“I’m from a small town and nothing like that ever happens over here. I didn’t expect it to blow up like that! Once it started happening, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh!’ I called my family and I was like, ‘Everyone’s sharing the pictures!’” she told PEOPLE.
Even though it was uploaded last year, the pictures resurfaced once more as people scrolled through the avalanche of graduation photos shared by students. Tori says that her post racked up a thousand more retweets.
“I woke up and I had a ton of notifications … People had started sharing and liking and commenting all over again,” Tori said. “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!’”
Tori lives with her father Dennis, stepmother Jamie, and baby brother Silas in Huntsville. She said that her family found the old photograph last year as they searched for baby pictures of her to display at her graduation party. It was actually her aunt who came up with the idea of recreating the cute photo.
“It was really cool because it was the same place that he graduated from!”, Tori said. “For me to be in the same place that he was 18 years before that, it was really cool.”
The recent graduate said that the photo had a positive effect on her relationship with her father.
“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,” she said.
Currently, Tori is a student at Sam Houston State University and says that she plans on continuing the tradition of recreating the photo when she graduates in 2022. And since Dennis knows just how to be a good father to a daughter, for sure he will still cooperate!
“It’s in the same town that I was born and raised in. When I graduate from Sam, it’ll be in the same stadium that I graduated in from high school and the same stadium that he graduated in from high school,” she said.
How cool is that? We’ll watch out for your pictures, Tori!
