My mom is not a spotlight mother. She doesn’t do her song and dance for an audience (though perhaps she’ll give you a private jig or two) and she doesn’t perform for accolades. She is the quintessential support-giver. A team player. The kind of person you only hope you have standing behind you in any given moment, good or bad.

I say this because I’ve realized a lot about my mom during the last few tough months of my life.

Claudia Jones Lawton is nurse by trade, but I’m know she’s so well-equipped for this field because God built within her the gifts for a good nurse… Compassion, honesty, integrity, hospitality. Claudia, with gifts in tow, came first into this world — the nursing profession was the perfect fit for her. I can’t distinguish “my mom” from “my mom the nurse” because they are one and the same! When mom rubs my swollen feet with lotion, gives advice on medicines over the phone, or listens to my frustrations with concern, she does so out of love that flows from deep within her being.

She is simply the best mother on earth, the only woman I’d want next to me in all my good and all my bad moments. I hope to be half the woman she is someday, half the mother and caregiver to my children that she has been to me. I love you, mom! Thanks for putting up with us kids for all these years…

xoxo Becca Ruth