My Mom

Following are the general thoughts and comments I delivered at my mom's funeral on April 18. They are most likely not in the order I gave them that day or even exactly what I said that day.

Thank you for joining our family today to celebrate the life of my mom, Carolyn Mathis.

I want to say a special "Thank you" to my sisters for the countless hours that they put into caring for my mom, for the nights they spent away from their families. My mom taught them well.

My comments today are loosely entitled "Making Memories." This phrase is one of my mom's favorite phrases. She employed it often during our childhood, many times when what was happening was unpleasant. She would pipe up, "We're making memories." She used it often with me as she tried to do something with my curly hair. As you can she her attempts to tame it failed.

Many of you know my mom in many different capacities. You know her as a friend, a co-worker, a Sunday school teacher, church member. I want to tell you a few things about my mom that you may not know.

In our family she was the best back scratcher. She was a patient stick-shift teacher. According to her local grandchildren she was a talking phone book with better and more accurate information than "Ask Jeeves." She was a champion giblet gravy maker. She was the worst voice mail message leaver.

A couple of years ago on Easter Sunday, mom left me a message. It went something like this (read in slow, sombre monotone): "Rhonda, Michael, Daniel, Andrew, Susanna, This is Grandma Carolyn. I just called to say Happy Easter." When the message started I just knew someone had die because of the tone of her voice.

Papa Farley called her Cat and after his death, my sister, Theresa kept the nickname alive. Cat is an ironic nickname for my mom because she had an almost unhealthy fear of cats. I think that was a result of her brother, Ronnie, tossing a cat onto her head.

She wasn't a gourmet cook, but her stewed potatoes, fried okra and fried squash couldn't be beat.

To her grandchildren she was Grandma Carolyn, and sometimes Graham Cracker.

Twenty years ago, she began setting aside a portion of her vacation time each year to keep my kids during the summer. I was the envy of all of my friends. I thought that was what all grandmas did.

When our family vacationed at Lake Lure my mom with have evening lessons with the kids complete with activity pages, prizes and a dollar for someone to win.

I am convinced that Black Friday is a successful retail event solely based on the efforts of my mom. She started the tradition in our family of getting up before 4 a.m. to begin our shopping. It was breakfast at the Waffle House with deer hunters, shop, snack shop, shop, lunch, shop, shop and a stop by Krispy Kreme on the way home.

It really is a miracle that my sisters and I didn't think we had a long lost relative named "Clarance." Every time we shopped my mom said, "Look for the clarance." (Clearance.)

My mom wasn't a seamstress. She could sew on a button, but I doubt she could sew a straigth seam, but she could spot shotty workmanship in a garmet a mile away. I can't recall how many times she made us put down something we wanted to buy because the seams weren't straight or the cut wasn't right or the stripes didn't match.

If there was an award for the most words ever read in the Gaffney Ledger, I think my mom would win. In fact, according to my dad, this was probably one of the most puzzling things about my mom. If she went out of town, someone saved all the Ledgers for her while she was gone. Upon her return she would spent hours reading them all.

The video showed my mom fishing. I'm not so sure she liked fishing all that much, but she did like to reel them in. Most of all she liked spending time on the pontoon with daddy. In fact that is probably the best marital advice my mom ever gave me--spending the time with her husband, being there with him.

You probably didn't know that for almost two years my mom ran a roadside breakfast stand. Every morning my mom would meet her great-granddaughter, Alyssa, at the end of her driveway with a breakfast to go--a granola bar, egg sandwich, piece of pizza--all delivered with love. Alyssa said after she started eating breakfast at school, Grandma Carolyn and Papa Jerry would sit on the porch and wave to her as she went up the road to school.

She was a pen pal. When her granddaughter Heidi moved away from home to go to Wofford, my mom started a once a week letter campaign to Heidi. Until just a few weeks ago, she wrote Heidi one letter a week for seven years. The letter were clippings or just bits of news, but she didn't want Heidi's mailbox to go week without something in it.

My mom was a hero. One afternoon years ago, we were driving down Colonial Avenue. Smoke was coming from the eaves of a house. My mom stopped the car and went to the door. No one came to the door, but the door was open. My mom went in and came out with a baby that was crying in its crib. The mom and stepped next door to a neighbors house and the kitchen had caught on fire.

My mom married into a singing family, but never thought of herself as a singer. If the person beside her sang soprano, that's what she sang. If she sat in the alto section, she sang alto. I took get delight as a teenager by standing beside her in choir and jumping around to different parts. It would drive her crazy. But my mom was a faithful choir member, and she learned to sing.

When my mom went to the hospital in January, I drove down for a few days to stay with her. Everyone who came to her room got a "Have a blessed day" as they went out.

Our mom poured herself out for her family, and we are so full and so rich and so blessed because of it. So many people have said over the past few days, "Carolyn was a special lady" or "She was such a good person." And she was, but the reason these statements can be made about my mom is because she allowed Jesus to be big in her.

When my dad had to choose a scripture for the prayer card, he went to my mom's Bible and looked through it. He came back with Psalm 100: "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord...."

Mrs. Allison my mom's neighbor of 45 years stopped by the week and one of the things she said was, "Please don't let those joyful noises on that porch stop."

You see, I think for my mom spending time with her family, loving on them, pouring out for them, was one of the ways she worshipped the Lord.

(There were many things I forgot to say that day, and many things that these thoughts prompted us to think about. I'm sure there will be more to come.)