EAST DUBLIN, Ga. — In East Dublin, one East Laurens High School student has a special bond with his mom, who he's been taking care of for years.
La'tyren Baker is 18, but he has a lot more responsibility than many kids his age.
"If you help people, it will come back to you. If you provide something for somebody, it will come back to you in the long run," Baker said.
It's that mindset that's kept him going when his mom, Yolanda Wright, started getting sick about five years ago.
"You could tell she was getting skinnier and like she wouldn't- as healthy as she used to be like, she would still smile all that type of stuff, but like she was, you could tell something was off," Baker said.
When his mom had a stroke at the beginning of his high school journey, he knew it was time to grow up and step up for the woman who was always there for him.
"I ain't going to school my ninth-grade year cause of COVID, so I was online, but I was helping her. Tenth-grade year, I barely went to school 'cause I was, I was here with her," he said.
Baker also works a part-time job in addition to going to high school, but his real work starts at home, where he does tasks for his mom.
"We put her in the bed. If she's going somewhere with my grandma, we have to bathe her and get her dressed," he said.
He hopes that the skills he learned to care for his mom will make him a great nurse one day. He plans on taking nursing classes at Middle Georgia State University in the fall.
"I really don't like being in the hospital. But like going back and forth, like it made me wanna help her and seeing like a lot of people getting sick, a lot of mothers getting sick, it made me want to help," Baker said.
Baker said the special connection they've always had hasn't changed one bit since his mom got sick.
"We were Bonnie and Clyde, so we still like that. Like we, uh, play fight. All that kind of stuff like she was, she was involved with us," Baker said.
And it was always her who kept him going in high school until he got to the finish line.