This future nurse from TERRA is the first in her family to graduate from high school

Carolina Rojas dropped out of school in the 10th grade. She had two daughters, got her GED, and worked her way through college to become a nurse.

Her firstborn, Angie Caballero, grew up wanting to be a nurse, just like her mother. She thumbed through her mother’s medical textbooks and hung around her study groups.

That’s why the day Angie, now 17, would have graduated from TERRA Environmental Research Institute would have been like two high school graduations — one for the daughter, and one for the mother.

“When you don’t do certain things, you live through your kids,” said Rojas.

Then came the pandemic. Graduation day will have all the pomp and circumstance of a recorded ceremony.

“It’s OK that prom was canceled or the Grad Bash or states,” Angie said. “But my big thing was getting to hear my parents’ name on graduation.”

They’ll log on to see the ceremony, but how could it be the same?

“You knew she was graduating, but seeing her dress like this is a completely different emotion,” Rojas said, watching her daughter pose in her cap and gown. “They’re missing out on that personal touch that they completed something.”

Angie had come so far. She finally found a solid friend group. She ordered a yearbook for the first time. She became vice president of her school’s Future Health Professionals and was supposed to compete in states because she placed second in regionals.

That was Angie’s first event to get canceled in March.

“I just felt like senior year was supposed to be like a big thing. And once it started getting to all the events, it just all canceled,” Angie said. “It’s OK, though, because instead of looking at everything that we lost in these last few months because of corona, I think of everything that we accomplished.”

Angie’s accomplishments were a family production. When they used to live in Homestead, there were 4 a.m. drop-offs with her best friend’s mother so Angie could go to school in the Palmetto area.

So when it was time to order junior class rings, Angie let her parents design hers, even though she wanted a generic one. And Rojas couldn’t wait to go prom dress shopping for her daughter.

There was no “If you go to college,” in that household. Only “when.”

This fall, Angie will attend Florida State University — sight unseen.

“We’re graduating, that’s a big thing, I mean at least in my family,” she said. “Everybody doesn’t graduate. And I’m going to college. That’s another accomplishment.”

Despite all the coronavirus has taken from Angie, the pandemic hasn’t scared her away from following in her mother’s footsteps.

“I actually wish I was a nurse now,” she said.

This story was originally published June 3, 2020 at 6:00 AM.