Teen nominates mom as Oklahoma Hero

"She's not only my mom, she's also my caregiver, advisor, wisdom, shelter, sense of belonging, biggest fan and honest."

It's one thing to tell a loved one how thankful you are face-to-face, but you take it up a notch when you decide to broadcast it to the rest of the world! In part that's what led a local teen to nominate her mother as a 2007 Oklahoma Hero nominee. NEWS 9's Doug Warner reports, this hero is credited with keeping her home together, even through the worst of times.

"I guess I always thought mom was someone to look up to, not just me but the whole family.  She's been the rock for us," 15-year-old Katelyn Lamb said.

In her email to us Katelyn Lamb put to words her feelings about her mother.

"I mean I tell her,  but probably not as in detail as I should," said Katelyn.

Funny how you can spend an entire morning in the kitchen together, or even an entire lifetime, and never find the perfect words or even all of the words to say.

"I'd hoped not to persuade but simply to illuminate the greatness of this woman," Cyndi Lamb Curry read from Katelyn's letter.

Just a tad embarrassed, Katelyn's mother hadn't read her daughter's email, until now.

"I didn't even think it was that good," said Katelyn.

"When things do get tough, I merely have to look at where I've come from," Cyndi read.

Katelyn's mother Cyndi and father Steve fell in love and had two sons, and in the summer of 1991 they found out they were pregnant with Katelyn

"What my mother has come through and I know things will always get better," Cyndi read.

Just months after learning she was pregnant, only four days after Christmas, Steve was hit head-on while driving a stretch of Western Avenue. Steve laid in a coma for months, in fact two months after the accident, while recovering on one floor of Mercy Hospital, Cyndi was on another giving birth to Katelyn.

"Just to not have him there to share in the moment, it was such a mixture of pain and joy, all rolled into one," Cyndi said.

Despite severe brain damage and permanent paralysis Steve would finally come home and share five more wonderful years with his family before passing away. One of the things he used to say to me is,  ‘I'm still so grateful to still be able to be here in my children's lives,'" said Cyndi.

But Katelyn says what she also remembers is how her mother held their family together during those tough five years.

"She would say Katelyn, I'm having a hard time right now. Pray for me, or lets cry," said Katelyn.

And the good days and every day since, "She's not only my mom, she's also my caregiver, advisor, wisdom, shelter, sense of belonging, biggest fan and honest," Cyndi Lamb Curry read from Katelyn's email.

"She's just amazing, strong, brave and all things I would want to be, and what I'd want a hero to be," said Katelyn.

It's been more than 16-years since Steve's accident. Cyndi has since remarried and the entire family is doing great. She's even written a book "Keeping Your Kids Afloat When It Feels like You're Sinking."

--News9.com