Donna L. Nardo

I don't think anyone could be more of a hero than my mom. Like most moms, she prepares food, buys food, and generally takes care of me. Those, I know, are the regular jobs of a mom. It is just what she did for me recently.

In late November of 1999, I dislocated one of my kneecaps in gym class. I'm not sure even today exactly how I did it, but the day it happened I was lying in the middle of the gym floor feeling helpless with the two gym teachers and two nurses surrounding me. My mom came in with a smile on her face to try and cheer me up. On the way to the hospital, my mom was telling me stories of the trips she had to the different hospitals.

At the hospital, the doctor and the nurse were very friendly to me. What I thought was funny, even though she didn't mean it to be funny, was my mom was standing at the door when she told the doctor she felt that she was going to faint. The doctor was joking when he said he didn't think that we could fit three beds in the room. He meant there would be one for me, one for my mom (because she said she felt like she had to faint) and there could be one last one for my dad. At that time, the doctor had just heard that my dad was coming.

At home, my mom let me stay home from school the next day and answered the tons of phone calls we got that day about me and my knee. I can say I was happy to get all those phone calls and at the same time, I started to get annoyed at them. It was just that I started to get so many calls asking about the same thing I became bored. But the whole time, my mom had a smile on her face and was always trying to make up funny jokes to cheer me up.

Over all the days that I was with her I think those days she was the most my friend and very kind to me.