Birthdays are always special occasions that deserve to be honored and enjoyed with one’s nearest and dearest.

Especially for kids and teens, it’s always nice to have your parents, siblings, and closest friends around when you’re blowing out the candles and celebrating getting another year older.

Unfortunately, the lockdowns and quarantines caused by the coronavirus have made it difficult or even impossible for folks to have parties and get-togethers like they normally would, but that didn’t stop one dad going above and beyond to wish his daughter a very happy birthday!

Diana Segura Lerma was due to celebrate her 19th birthday on May 8. Like a lot of people having birthdays these days, she was expecting a simple and quiet day, as the new rules meant that she couldn’t go out with her friends or fly across her home state of Texas to be with her loving father.

Secretly, however, Diana’s dad, 57-year-old Julio Cesar Segura, was planning to make the huge cross-state trip from El Paso to Austin in order to give his little girl a wonderful birthday surprise.

He had to drive for 17 hours in total, 8 and a half hours each way, for over 1,100 miles, but it was worth it all to see the look on Diana’s face when he got there!

In order to keep the surprise a secret, Julio gave Diana a call and pretended to still be at home. He said that since he wouldn’t be able to visit her, he could at least order her some Uber Eats food.

The dad and daughter have a tradition of getting Chick-Fil-A sandwiches on every one of Diana’s birthdays, so she asked him for a chicken fillet sandwich with pepperjack cheese, buffalo sauce, and mayonnaise.

Diana explained:

He brings me that sandwich for lunch on my birthday every year—so far, he hasn’t missed a year.

Diana assumed that the fast food would arrive at her door, delivered by an Uber driver, and she definitely wasn’t expecting her dad to have woken up early that morning and started an enormous drive all the way to her home, just to be with her.

In interviews, Julio revealed that he’d woken up at 3.30am and left the house at 4.15.

When he arrived, he knocked on the door, holding the food, some balloons, and a big poster board with a happy birthday greeting written on it, as Diana reveals:

He showed up with the food and a poster board and balloons. I was so excited. I haven’t seen him in months, since winter break. I didn’t think that I would see him again until August… He has always been someone who loves gestures, but I never imagined he would do this in a pandemic.

Diana and Julio then enjoyed their lunch together, as they always do, only this time they had to sit a little further apart than usual due to the rules of social distancing.

They wanted to stay safe, so carefully kept their distance and enjoyed half an hour of happiness together before Julio had to begin the long drive home.

I was the driving the whole day but I was so happy on the way back. She deserved a good birthday.

What an incredible dad!

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Source: Good News Network