DAISY award winner Melonie Rakestraw, a surgery department nurse at Baptist Union County, was nominated by a patient’s family member for her kindness and compassion. In the nomination, the mother of a young patient described the child’s apprehension in the holding area of surgery. Melonie assured the patient that she would stay with him until he was asleep. The mother wrote, “She hugged me, and I felt the connection of her being a mother and doing what any mother would do for their own child. Melonie took on the sole responsibility of a child she had never met and gave him the best care.”