When Virginia Sanchez was a teenager in Fort Mill, and her name was "Ginny" Carroll, and other kids dreamed about careers, she dreamed about being a mother. The white picket fence and the house and the children.

"She wanted to grow up and be a housewife," said her mother, Yvonne Leon.

Ginny had to work hard at her schoolwork, said her parents, Leon and Keith Carroll. But she tried -- hard. And when her mother remarried, and had triplets eight years ago, she fell in love with nursing right there in intensive care.

"That sparked an interest in her," Leon said.

Ginny after high school went to York Technical College and received a nurse's aide certificate. One time her friend was dating a guy, and through her she met his friend, Alfredo Sanchez. An olive-skinned, handsome guy with a smile that hid until she unlocked it. It wasn't too long before they were married and started a family.

Jordan, a son now 3 years old, came first. Miguel, another son now 18 months, afterward. Her parents marveled at what a fine mother Ginny was. Her husband agreed.

"She wanted a daughter, too," said Alfredo Sanchez, her husband. "A good mother. Loving."

Ginny sang to her kids, read them stories at night like mothers do. When the boys cried, she could soothe them better than anyone else, like mothers can. She dressed her boys alike so many times, like mothers do, and took them to Fort Mill's Westerly Hills Baptist Church, where she sang in the choir.

"She had a beautiful voice, like a bird," her husband said. "I called her 'Sweetie.' I say, 'You look beautiful, Sweetie.' When she dressed up for church, she looked beautiful."

All the while during her young marriage with two small sons and a husband, wanting that daughter and the house and the picket fence, she planned to go on to school.

"She was patient, diligent, in finding her way to that nurse's aide certificate, and there is no doubt she would have become a registered nurse, neo-natal nurse, someday," her father said.

Nurse's aides are at the bottom of the medical totem pole, but they are some of the most vital people in any hospital. Doctors come and go, nurses aides are the ones who feed you, clean you, sing to you, hold your head when you cry in the night.

That was Ginny Carroll Sanchez at Carolinas Medical Center-Pineville.

But that all ended April 16, when police say Ginny was found, strangled, in her car in the hospital parking lot. Police soon arrested a man from Rock Hill, Jesus Alcocer Rangel, 26, who knew the Sanchez family. It is public record that Ginny had a restraining order against Rangel at one time, and had filed police reports against Rangel for alleged vandalism. Rangel is in jail in Charlotte awaiting trial on a murder charge.

Since Ginny's death, the hospital has sold so many ribbons of blue and white, so many blue bracelets that say "Our 2 West Angel, Virginia Sanchez," that they had to order more. More than 70 of her coworkers attended the memorial service for a nurse's aide who sang to patients, and her own sons.

Jordan and Miguel now have no mother. Alfredo Sanchez, a construction worker by trade, is now a single father. He has Ginny's parents for support, and his sister and other family, and others, and the church.

"A big, wide circle of support," said Keith Carroll, Ginny's father.

Miguel is too young to know much. But Jordan has asked for his mother, and had nightmares, his father said.

"He woke up screaming, saying, 'I want momma,'" Alfredo Sanchez said.

But his mother, who was just 23 years old, is dead.

Ginny, this Mother's Day is for you.