A Texas high school valedictorian has delivered a tear-jerking speech that left his audience gasping—hours after attending his father’s funeral.
On May 16, 18-year-old Alem Hadzic of Early College High School stood before his graduating class and congratulated them. In his speech, he shared the heartbreaking news that his father, Miralem, had passed away after a short battle with cancer.
Mr. Hadzic revealed that his father was diagnosed with cancer at the beginning of his spring semester. However, he avoided letting many know about it as he didn’t want to be treated differently in his last semester.
As he continued his speech, he credited his father for all of his success.
“And I can’t stand up here and pretend I want to be doing this speech right now,“ Mr. Hadzic said. ”But I can’t throw something away that he worked so hard for me to achieve. And that’s why I’m going to go to college, and I’m going to spend every hour of every day working as hard as I can to achieve all of my goals because that’s what he wanted, and I’m going to do it for him.”
The Early College High School graduate exited the stage to a roaring applause—his speech audibly touching every person present.
After the ceremony, a lot of strangers wanted to take pictures with him. Some even showed their support by sharing with him about how strong he was.
“It made me feel so good on such a dark day. It was really what I needed,” the teenager said.
He shared that he had made some last-minute changes to his speech because a lot had happened since he initially wrote it.
“I got on stage,” he said. “I started reading the script, and when I got to the part about my dad, I couldn’t just read off a script anymore. I had to talk about my experience, and I had to talk from the heart.”
In the fall, Mr. Hadzic will pursue a degree in chemical engineering at the University of Texas, Austin.
