This proud mother went above and beyond to recognize her son's accomplishment of graduating from college!
Derrick Williams graduated from Baylor University but due to the coronavirus pandemic, his commencement ceremony was cancelled...or so he thought! His mom, Ayanna Tatum, transformed their backyard into a ceremony space equipped with a stage, podium, microphone, Baylor flag and a socially distant audience of family and friends to celebrate Williams' big day!
"I wanted to do anything to get him remotely close to a ceremony," Tatum told "Good Morning America." "He's just an amazing kid."
The ceremony came as a total shock to Williams! He was under the impression that he was going to his mom's house for lunch but when he pulled up, the front of the house was decked out and he could see people moving the stage from the backyard.
"At the time I didn't put two and two together, that it would be used for a ceremony, but I started eyeing my mom, like, 'What's going on?', and she just smiled," Williams told GMA.
Tatum served a dual role as the master of ceremonies and commencement speaker and in an effort to make the ceremony more realistic, she jokingly told her son that because his "last name begins with a 'W,' it's going to be a while before you're called."
Williams graduated from Baylor with a degree in psychology and will be attending the University of Houston in fall for medical school to study to become an orthopedic surgeon.