El Paso mom celebrates daughter’s senior year by decorating front door

EL PASO, Texas-- With school being put on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic, many high school seniors were sad to think that walking for their high school graduation might not happen.

One El Paso mom decided that she still wanted to celebrate her daughter in a special way regardless of whether her daughter would be walking the stage for graduation or not.

"It's something that I have been looking forward to since I was small," said Anabelle Gurrola when asked how she felt about the possibility of graduations being put on hold this year. "With it being my senior year and not being able to see my friends and not finish the year off with them, it makes me sad."

Gurrola is a senior at Bel Air High School. It wasn't just the possibility of graduation being postponed that made Gurrola sad.

"I'm in the health magnet program at Bel Air so doing my clinical rotations at my clinic, it was hard to give that up as well because I really did get close to some of the patients there and especially some of the workers," said Gurrola.

Gurrola's Mom, Flor Castaneda Avila, knew that her daughter was hurt by this news so she decided to lift her spirits up by recreating a post she saw circulating on Facebook. Avila celebrated her daughters senior high school career by placing her cheerleading outfit and sash right outside her front door. This small gesture made Gurrola feel appreciated.

"It made me feel very emotional because it really did give me some kind of comfort knowing that someone does care and is doing something to comfort us in these hard times," said Gurrola.

This small act is also a way for parents to say thank you to those young students who worked so hard these past few years.

"We're all devastated and heartbroken you know this was supposed to be our year, and it's really just an act of kindness that makes you feel better and it does give you that kind of comfort that we all need right now, and just a little bit of hope that everything will soon go back to the way it was."