By his own admission, Ken Crampton “messed up” and ended up on the streets a few years ago.

The person who stood by him, but always with a lot of tough love, was his mom, Tami Hurd.

“I really had put her through hell so many times,” the Madison Heights man said. “She still showed me passionate and caring love.”

Crampton has rebuilt his life and has a place to live now. His mom now lives inTexas.

He recalls proudly that she raised him and his brother alone after their stepfather died.

“My mom isn’t just my mom. She’s like a best friend. It might seem weird saying she’s like a best friend, but she is, and I’m so proud to call her my mother.”

For Mother’s Day, The Oakland Press asked readers via social media to share what they love about their moms. We heard recurring themes about moms who demonstrated loyalty time and again, moms who taught resilience, moms who went the extra mile, moms who made the best of difficult circumstances, moms who always took care of the little things.

Some of these mothers are no longer here but are fondly remembered.

Here are the stories that readers shared with us.

“One of the things I love most about my mom is that she’s a walking contradiction in the most magical way. She’s soft but fierce. Grounded but otherworldly. A healer with a spiritual book in one hand and a Detroit Lions foam finger in the other,” wrote Laken Sheridan of Waterford Township.

“She’s proof that you can be an ethereal hippie while simultaneously shouting obscenities at the TV during football season,” Sheridan said of her mom, Carrie LaRoche-Sinay of Davisburg.

LaRoche-Sinay was “a single mom with big dreams and zero time for excuses,” Sheridan said.

“She earned her master’s in social work while raising my brother and me, and never once made us feel like we were a burden (even when we were absolute gremlins).”

“Proof of my mom’s real magic is the way she makes people feel. She is a daughter, sister, wife, and friend who makes everyone feel heard, seen, and supported. She is a mother who made space for her kids to grow into caring and creative individuals. Whether it was a fleeting interest in guitar, drama club, video games, or changing our majors for the fourth time, she never rolled her eyes. She rolled up her sleeves and supported us anyway.”

Her mother is the “metalhead sage” who assures you that everything is going to be OK while cleaning the house and listening to Alice in Chains at full volume, Sheridan said.

It has been a few years since Morgan Noe of Waterford Township lost her mom, Candi Fuentes, of Potterville, Michigan.

She struggled with her health, but always demonstrated strength that Noe still struggles to understand.

“That strength is something I carry with me now,” she said, and hopes she honors her mother by doing so.

“You kept going, even when your body was tired and your spirit was tested,” she wrote in a letter to her mom.

“You weren’t perfect — and you never pretended to be — but you loved with everything you had. Your love was real, and raw, and fierce. I saw it in the way you protected me, in the little things you did when no one else noticed, and in how you never gave up — on life, or on the people you cared for.

“I wish you were still here, not just to tell you all of this, but to show you how far I’ve come—and how far I’ll go, with you still in my heart.”

Taylor Jennings of West Bloomfield Township lost her mom, Sharon Manni Bordeaux, to colon cancer 10 years ago.

“I loved the way she cared for others with no judgment,” Jennings wrote. “She devoted her life to taking care of others and enjoyed being a nurse.”

Jennings said she never hesitated to look after anyone, whether humans or animals.

“I admired her strength; raising two girls as a single mom wasn’t easy for her,” Jennings said. “She taught me the most important lesson: that no matter what, life goes on, and we have to pick ourselves up no matter how hard the battle. My mother was a warrior and strength was the most valuable lesson she taught me.”

Stacie Rose says her mom, Barb Scheib, is “always doing the little things and being present to show us how much she cares.”

“She has always taught me to look at the positive growing up and to find something to be thankful for, even on the lowest days,” said Rose, who lives in White Lake Township, not far from her mother.

Now that Rose is grown and married, her mom, retired and widowed, devotes her time to her four grandchildren.

“She is always loving, loyal, and a constant support to myself and our family,” Rose said.