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Mother's Day weekend filled with memories

Sounds like I missed a big weekend in Brentwood but I wouldn’t have traded my Mother’s Day weekend for anything happening here.

We traveled to Greenville, S.C. to watch oldest son -- Martin Taylor Leathers -- graduate from Furman University. Anyone reading this who has toddlers be warned: You’ll blink your eyes and you’ll be at their high school graduation. One week later it will be Furman or UT or Alabama or … Emory & Henry.

I don’t know how it happened but it did. And as a proud mom, let me boast a bit.

He got out in four years and with a “Cum Laude” label attached to his degree.

His classmates voted him “Most School Spirited” as a senior superlative. He won the “Furman Fury” contest (and a free trip to Myrtle Beach) for attending more FU sporting events than any other student. (Check out the YouTube video for the interview. Luckily, he shaved the Mohawk before we got to campus on Friday.) He also was named Club Sport President of the year for ultimate Frisbee and the team’s MVP.

Earlier this spring, he was recognized at the senior academic achievement banquet with one of three awards given by the religion department. After a year’s respite from class work, he plans to attend one of the three divinity schools he’s been accepted into. They’re based at Duke, Emory and American universities.

On Sunday, after Saturday night’s commencement ceremony, we attended the small Methodist church where Martin is now Director of Youth – a part-time position he’ll continue through the next year in addition to working with the Furman athletic department’s equipment team. He gave the children’s church “sermon” and I couldn’t have been more proud.

Sometimes I think we got the wrong kid at the hospital 22 years ago. Let’s just say that neither of his parents was particularly scholastically inclined. And the serious faith journey he began in middle school didn’t hit his mom until she was approaching middle age.

The Leathers’ extended family was there en masse, making Mother’s Day weekend even more special. Son No. 2’s journey from Waco, Texas to Greenville involved a Greyhound bus, a metro train and a taxi ride, a broken plane, a free night in Dallas, a bumpy bus ride to DFW airport and, finally, a flight to South Carolina. But he made it; all by himself. He’s another kid that may not really be mine.

My own mother was at her oldest grandson’s graduation, as she should have been. Baxter Brooks Taylor IV didn’t start Marshall University until he had served four years in the U.S. Army. He enlisted the week before 9/11. His duty included a tour in Iraq.

After leaving the Army, he settled in to his broadcast journalism studies at Marshall, a longtime dream and the job he had in the service. But after two years in Huntingdon, he was called back in and sent to Kuwait.

Finally, closing in on his 30^th birthday, he crossed the stage and received his degree Saturday morning.

I understand it was quite the Mother’s Day weekend in West Virginia as well.

To all of the mothers who celebrated here, I hope your special day was just as wonderful. And to all of the current and upcoming college and high school graduates, congratulations. And please continue to make your Mamas proud.