South Carolina Student Surprised at School With Return of Her Dad From Kuwait
“She didn’t talk. She was just crying,” said Sgt. Carlos Solis Melendez.
— -- It was a normal school day for senior Solymar Solis until an unexpected visitor arrived.
Her dad, Sgt. Carlos Solis Melendez, surprised her by coming home early from Kuwait and visiting her unannounced at Spring Valley High School in South Carolina.
“She didn’t talk. She was just crying,” Melendez told ABC News of his daughter’s shocked reaction. “She was overwhelmed with everything. She thought it was a dream.”
After serving in Kuwait for nine months, Melendez returned home a week earlier than his daughter expected. He held balloons and flowers in a classroom as he sat in a student’s desk to blend in with the crowd.
“It came across my mind like, 'How is she going to react?,'" he recalled of the heartwarming moment. “'Is she going to be happy and run to me and hug me, or cry?' That was all going on through my mind.”
As an unsuspecting Solymar entered the classroom, she was soon overcome with emotion, immediately bursting into tears and covering her mouth in shock.
“I’m a single parent so while I was deployed, I got my sister to live with my daughter,” Melendez explained. “When I was coming back and talking to my sister, we came to the conclusion that we should do something special for my daughter. We got in touch with the school, and they planned this whole being-in-the-classroom thing, and it turned out perfect.”
The two are very much looking forward to some good daddy-daughter time now that he’s home.
“It means everything,” Melendez said of being able to surprise his daughter this way. “After all the sacrifices she’s made, she deserves all the special arrangements and special occasions and celebrations. I’ll do anything for my daughter. The moments that she’s going to accumulate through her life, if I can make them special, then I believe I’m doing good parenting.”
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