Check Out the Stories and Photos in Our Best Mom in the Permian Basin Contest!

My mom is the best in the Permian Basin because she does things for me she never could do as a kid. She makes my life so much better, and she's really easy to talk to. She never lets a conversation die, no matter what, and she loves to joke. She helps me make the right decisions, and she makes sure I'm always happy. I love her so much!

My mom is the best mom in the Permian Basin because she got pregnant at 15, got a job at 16 while she was still pregnant with me, worked until the day she had me and after she got out the hospital, she went back to work the next day to support me. She is a full time student and still till this day, she is a full time student and works and finds time to play with me and give me all the attention I need. My mom is a single mom and gets very little help it would help her out so much to win she don't get to do anything for her self

My wife is not only the best mom in the Permian Basin, she is the BEST mom in the world! We have 4 of the most awesome children and she loves them more than anything. We are a very lucky family.

My mom is the best because she takes care of everyone but herself. She took care of my grandmother for a year who was suffering from cancer before she died earlier this year. My mom cooks, cleans and runs us all over where ever we need to go.

Being a mother is, I believe, one of the hardest jobs that a woman can have. Being a single mother is even harder. To be a single mother, have a full time job and be a full time student just seems downright impossible for many! I am proud to say that my mother does all three of those things and more. Growing up as an only child, it was always just my mom and I. When I was 14 years old, my life changed, my brother was born! Having only two children with a 14 year difference, people say that my mom started motherhood all over. I was almost raised and then when my brother came into the world, it’s like she had to do the hardest part of raising over again! I am now 23 years old and my brother is 9, and even though I try to help with the raising of my brother, I must say that my mother is, to me, Super Mom! When I think of the things my mom does on a daily basis to maintain the life that we have, I am unsure how she hasn’t been given an award, already! To my mom, her life is normal. Being a single mother, working as hard as she does and being exhausted with no room for herself, is normal.
Since it is 2014, there are millions of single mothers with full time jobs and busy schedules; exhaustion is accustomed. Many people have a full time job that is centered on being a 40 hour work week. My mother’s “job” as the Cardiovascular nurse and Stroke Coordinator of Medical Center Hospital, is not your average 40 hour work week or full time job, but rather who she is and not just what she does.
As a cardiovascular nurse and stroke coordinator, my mom plays a major role in countless lives. She is responsible for caring for patients who are victims of stroke, educating them on the traumatic event that has altered their life. She also provides the victims, caregivers and family with all the information they need, answering all of their questions and assuring the understanding of the tragic event that has taken place and changed their lives from this point forward. As the nurse who cares for these patients, it is a day’s work all in its own, but that is not where the task ends with my mom.
As the stroke coordinator, my mother not only educates the patients and their family of stroke, but educates staff, and most importantly, the community! She teaches courses on stroke prevention, instructs lessons on how to handle a stroke when it happens and how to care for someone who is having or had a stroke. She is responsible for the hospital staff’s understanding of the procedures taken upon a stroke. She trains other nurses and works with doctors of patients. She even teaches courses to our community’s fire department, police department and other organizations (that may come in contact with victims of a stroke) how to properly carry out the care necessary for the life of the victim. She has also been interviewed on news channels across the state more than 20 times, giving miniature lessons on stroke prevention and care as well as promoting volunteer service and inviting victims to be a part of her support group!
My mother’s hard work is not overlooked. She has been awarded Nurse of the Month, nominated for Employee of the Year, awarded for improving cardiovascular care in the Permian Basin, and her biggest accomplishment; receiving the Gold Plus Award from the American Heart/American Stroke Association every year since she has been in her position as the Cardiovascular Nurse/Stroke Coordinator of Medical Center Hospital. Again, this amount of hard work and dedication is enough for her to be awesome, but she doesn’t stop there!
In 2011 my mother teamed up with an organization out of Illinois, “Stroke Camp” a traveling host of weekend retreats for stroke victims and patients. With the help of Medical Center Hospital, my mother was successful in providing “scholarships” to stroke victims and their caregivers to be able to attend. Stroke Camp is a weekend of fun, pampering and a much needed break for the victims of stroke and their caregivers to enjoy, with the courtesy of the volunteers. I was signed up to be a volunteer with her during our first visit to Stroke Camp and I have been a volunteer every year since. The relationships with the victims and caregivers grew within those two days and by the end of the first retreat, my mom decided that one weekend a year of this papering and fun was not enough.

Having the huge heart that my mother does have, she has successfully organized a monthly Stroke Support Group, sponsored by Medical Center hospital. Stroke Support Group started just after we returned from Stroke Camp in 2011 with 10 members and has met monthly since and has now grown to support fun and retreat monthly for over 50 patients, caregivers and volunteers of the Permian Basin!! The Stroke Support Group, not only meets to help each other cope with the daily lives they have faced since their stroke, but as a group we volunteer to help others in need. The Stroke Support Group, has built 2 handicap ramps for families in need in the Permian Basin. We have sent care packages to our military overseas and made Valentine’s Day cards for new stroke victims and painted pictures to brighten the halls of the stroke unit at Medical Center Hospital. Stroke Support Group has co-hosted events such as the annual Stroke Walk, Strike Out Stroke with the Midland Rockhounds and the CAF Airshow.
My mother has gone above and beyond in her line of work, not only does she complete the tasks she is given, she builds relationships with patients but has been known to provide impressive care for the patients she cares for. She has provided wheelchairs for stroke victims with her own funds, she has been known to give patients and caregivers her personal cell phone number to be used in any situation that she can help in and most of all be a friend.
As if her “job” isn’t enough for her to be responsible for, my mother is also attending a university online, to further her education to better care for her patients and be able to provide up to date knowledge on the study of stroke and carry out the information in her teaching. She is not only a student, but a straight A student at this university. With any given spare time, she is studying and working on assignments to achieve her goal in a higher education.
Even with her career and studies, my mother has been able to maintain our family and provide my brother and I with the necessities and desires of life. She has worked hard in her life to provide us with things that we needed or wanted, and has sacrificed her own wants and needs to cater to ours.

My mother being adopted and giving birth to me at the young age of 18, she was faced with the reality of raising a child or continuing her life for herself. She could have given me up for adoption, given me what some say would have been a better life for me. I am forever grateful that she didn’t, she has always been my best friend, my support and my role model. She has provided me with every need in my life, and has sacrificed so much in hers to be able to make mine better. Several of her friends who were also teen mothers at the time she became pregnant with me, gave their children up for adoption for a better life. My mother was determined to give me the life I deserved on her own.
That is exactly what she has done. She has given my brother and I the absolute best that she can and I couldn’t think of a better role model for a young woman like myself. When my mother was my age she had already accomplished so much, she had already bought a home to raise her family in, she had completed her nursing degree and was on her way to the top of the ladder that she continues to climb to this day to reach her goals. If I can be half of the woman my mother is today at some point in my life, I will be satisfied.

My mom is the best in the Permian Basin because she is not just my mom, she is my best friend. She does everything she can for me and my sister, even if it is something she doesn't want to do. She goes above and beyond for me and my sister. She is so easy to talk to and always there to help me with life decision and I'm so lucky and so blessed not to just call her my mom but my best friend.

My mom is the best in the Permian Basin because she has never gave up even though she has a lot on her plate that she sometimes can't handle it. My mom is the best because she was a single parent and did the best job she could at raising me & because she has also taken the responsibility of taking care of my disabled grandmother for over 10 years with little to no help from her brother and sister who say it was to much to handle. I'm proud of my mom because she has her GED, she has graduated from college, works full time and still manages to take care of me, my daughter and my grandmother. She's been through a lot and she's a hard working woman who has never given up faith and I'm just proud that she takes care of us when she could of easily just walked away. I love my mom and for the strength and the struggles shes endured. I think she deserves to have something nice for mothers day. God bless everyone.

My mother has seven children, five girls and two boys. Well, now they’re men and women. She divorced my dad when we were all still very young and it was the best thing she could have done for us. It was hard for her being a single mother, but she worked two jobs and went to college so she can make a better life for us all and she did. She has always been a loving and nurturing mother to all of us. She was also a mother to a lot of our friends that came from broken or abusive homes. Now we are all grown with families of our own. She has a lot of health problems and has had knee surgery that still gives her problems. There are times she can barely move without feeling pain, but she still gets up every morning, goes to work and has not stopped taking care of us. She has been a shoulder to cry on when we had relationship problems and divorces. She has always been the voice of understanding and has encouraged us to see the strength we have inside of us even if we couldn't. I am grateful to have a wonderful mother. She will never turn her back on us even when we feel the world has. She is always there to remind us that. No matter how old we are, we will always be her babies. I am honored to be able to look into her eyes every day and say "I love you Mom."

This is a picture of my mom and my youngest daughter. I chose this one because mo matter how old we are, this is how she sees all of us. Her babies.

My mom is the best mom in the Permian Basin because cares for me and my brother and sister. She puts us in front of her. She works and goes to school and still makes time to play with us. She helps us with homework while she cooks. She helps out at school and when we’re sick, she will take time off work or school to take care of us. Even while she's sick, she still gets us up and off to school, and still cooks and cleans. She takes us to the park after she gets off work. That's why my mom’s awesome.