Photo gallery: University of Utah students move into dorms

The University of Utah campus is bustling as students move into dorms in preparation for a new school year. For incoming freshman Amber San Miguel and her mother Adelaida San Miguel, it’s an especially momentous occasion. When Amber was a child, Adelaida earned a merit scholarship to the University of Utah. But her husband died and she was unable to use it. Now, Amber will be the first one in the family to get a bachelor’s degree. “She’s finishing what I started,” says Adelaida.

Amber smiles at her mother and continues, “We lost my dad. So she’s been the one to bring me here, to push me to do well in school, to show me what it’s like to be a hard working woman.”

When Amber was born, this achievement was hard for Adelaida to fathom. “She’s my miracle baby. When she was born she had a long list of issues. One of them was microtia and they thought she wouldn’t develop one of her ears. So she didn’t pass the hearing test. If she didn’t pass the hearing test, she was not going to be able to talk. And they were expecting that she was going to have equilibrium problems. So she’s probably not going to walk, or have troubles when she walks. She had kidney problems. She had jaundice. She had a big list.” She also had congenital torticollis. 

But as she wipes tears from her eyes, standing in her daughter’s dorm room, she says, “She’s here. She listens. She walks. She runs. And she’s super smart. For me, just getting the merit scholarship, that’s a great thing. Her brain is fine. So it’s a miracle. Life is a miracle. How am I not gonna cry when I’m so grateful?”