<p>In his acceptance speech after being named MVP of the NBA’s 2013-14 season, star Kevin Durant called his mom, Wanda Pratt, “the real MVP” for the sacrifices she made as a struggling single mom. </p><p>At age 21, Pratt was already raising two boys on her own. A federal employee in Maryland, she threw herself behind Durant and his love of sports, even if it meant sometimes dipping into her retirement money to finance his camps and team trips. Pratt counseled Durant to always finish what he started. “You made us believe; you kept us off the street,” Durant, former star of the Oklahoma City Thunder and current NBA Champion with the Golden State Warriors, said to his mom during his MVP speech. “You went to sleep hungry. You sacrificed for us.” </p><p>Pratt’s advice to other parents hoping to encourage their own talented children? “Never quit,” she told the <em>Washington Post</em>. “A way will be made.”</p><p>The following ESPN clip beautifully conveys the bond between Durant and his mom, and how she has been there for him every step of the way:</p><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/e5OYgyKU-Pg" allowfullscreen="" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0"></iframe><hr>
<p>Kathrin Romary Beckinsale, known to filmgoers as Kate Beckinsale, lost her actor father to a heart attack when she was five years old. Her widowed mom, actress Judy Loe, eventually moved in with director Roy Battersby when Beckinsale was nine, but the intervening years were a challenge. The actress, who remains close to her mom and stepfather, has deep respect for the trials Loe faced during her years as a <a href="https://esme.com/voices/perspectives/whats-a-solo-mom" target="_blank" class="wordlink">Solo Mom</a>. “She was a widow at 31, and she was an only child, and by that time her parents had died, too,” Beckinsale told the <em>Daily Mail</em> in 2008. She also shared that Loe was in hospital recuperating from surgery when she received the news that her husband had died. Now a mother herself, Beckinsale noted, “My mother had me at a similar sort of age as I was when I had Lily, and I feel so blessed not to have to deal with what she had to.”</p><hr><p><span style="font-size: 11px;">Image via Denis Makarenko / Shutterstock.com</span><span style="font-size: 11px;"></span></p>