Since the time she was eight, my mother knew what she wanted to be: a nurse, and a mother.

     I cannot remember a time in my childhood that I saw my mother without her nursing uniform. I know that I must have, but the sight of her coming home in clean white scrubs, trailing the sterile scent of the hospital is firmly imprinted in my memory.

      Despite her successful career as a registered nurse, my mother has also been able to keep a beautiful home for my father, her husband of over thirty years, and raise two children.

     Watching my mother get ready for work was my favorite part of my mornings as a child. She would pin her hair up into a bun and ask me to stand back as she sprayed it down with hairspray. She would apply a subtle pink lipstick, and then she was ready to go. In that moment, she became a nurse, a professional, but she was still always my mom.