Playing the Hand You're Dealt

In this episode of A Daughter's Inheritance, Susan sits down with Kate Salter Gregory,  Associate Professor and Director of the Mississippi Political Collections at Mississippi State University Libraries who has learned to make the most of whatever situation she was in. "You play the hand that you're dealt" was a mantra for the women who came before her. 

Kate shares the story of her mother, a confident, intelligent, endlessly curious woman who built a career in economic development with the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians before her diagnosis at 24 reshaped everything. Kate talks candidly about what it meant to grow up fast, to find independence forced on her early, and to spend countless hours in hospital rooms during her teenage years. She reflects on the friendships, faith, and community that carried her through.

This episode is a tender exploration of resilience, grief, and the inheritance of grit, faith, and self-belief passed from mother to daughter and now from Kate to her own two children.

Visit https://adaughtersinheritance.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

What she inspired me to do rather than try to copy paste her, finish something that she started. I mean she really didn't get a lot of time to start anything. What she inspired me to do was just be myself, follow my passion. Because again, you get the you play the cards, you're dealt, you only get this one life. You're you.

SPEAKER_02 0:41

And I want to uh encourage you, if if some of you, this may be your first episode to listen to, and you may have questions about the podcast, how it got started, um who am I? All those things. I want to encourage you to go back and start at the first episode. Listen to that one. It tells you a little bit about why I started the podcast, my story a little bit, my relationship uh with my mother. So you get that foundation stuff, and it kind of might make more of it uh come together. Then you can go and listen to some of the other stories that uh we keep adding each every other week. So and I am excited about the story we're gonna hear today. Um happy to welcome Kate Salter Gregory. Hi, welcome Kate on a hot southern summer Mississippi day.

SPEAKER_03 1:36

My favorite kind. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 1:38

Uh yeah, I was saying that um I had them come out yesterday to service my HVAC, and I think it's warmer today than it was yesterday. So not a good thing in uh in June in Mississippi. So Kate is an associate professor uh with tenure, right? Uh that was fairly recent, so that's exciting. I am director of the Mississippi Political Collections at our Mississippi State University Libraries, also a mom of two, and how old are they?

SPEAKER_03 2:12

My daughter is seven and my son is five. We're both headed to big school next year.

SPEAKER_02 2:18

So you got your hands full with that? Yes, ma'am. We um we've kind of been in close proximity to each other. I've known your dad for a long time. Uh your husband actually went with me on a study abroad trip to China like 10 years ago.

SPEAKER_03 2:37

Yes, it was 2016. Yeah. I can't believe it's been that long, but yes.

SPEAKER_02 2:41

We went to Shanghai and Tian and uh Beijing. We had about 20 people with us. He was our photographer from Agcom. That was a I think I almost killed him on Mount Tai.

SPEAKER_03 2:54

Oh, uh I think you did. That was a formative experience for him.

SPEAKER_02 2:59

Really prepared him for kids, I think. It was a horrible rainy day, but it was it was a cool experience, but it was that was a tough trick, uh, for sure. You went to college with my niece. Y'all were in sorority together.

SPEAKER_03 3:12

That's correct.

SPEAKER_02 3:13

So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:14

We were Alpha Omicron Pies at the University of Mississippi.

SPEAKER_02 3:19

Well, I see I wasn't gonna mention that part. We've known each other and each other's family, but we've kind of gotten to know each other the last few months. Uh some through the university, but mainly through rotary.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

Yes, ma'am.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

Um that seems to be a common thread on several of our guests, is uh a rotary connection somewhere. So um you were talking earlier. What'd you say you dabbled in oral history?

SPEAKER_03 3:43

I do. My my job title is sort of mysterious. What it means is as director of the Mississippi Collections, I'm the archivist and reference librarian uh for some of the largest congressional and political archives in the region, including the papers of Senator John C. Stennis, who folks in this community will recognize as one of our most famous alumni. And he was in the Senate for about 41 years, so his papers are quite large, about 4,000 boxes, and it attracts, you know, historians of 20th century American politics and government from all really all over the world. That's just one of them. We've got about 110 uh other unique political collections. Another one is Congressman Sonny Montgomery, a lot of other judges, elected officials, organizations. We've got the papers of the Mississippi Republican Party. That's a wonderful resource. So if you're interested in uh Mississippi political history, American politics, government, anything of that nature, war, things like Watergate, that's Vietnam. Place to be, huh? Right. Yeah, I mean, we we get a lot.

SPEAKER_02 4:56

Our technical direct director is smiling over there because when she was in college, she worked in the archives, her first job under um Francis Coleman. Oh my god, she's back in the day.

SPEAKER_03 5:09

I would not be where I uh where where I am without uh Dean Coleman. She changed my life and a lot of others.

SPEAKER_02 5:15

Yeah. The library, I think, wouldn't be where it is without absolutely talking about oral history. Why why don't you give us a little bit of oral history of uh the early years of your your mom?

SPEAKER_03 5:27

Sure. Her name was Paula Jones Salter. Uh she was the youngest and only daughter of Whitney and Merle Jones. Her mother's family, the Augustus family, they settled Knoxby County. I mean, my great-great-grandfather on that side was one of the original trustees of Mississippi when it was established. Uh, and then her dad's family was from Kentucky and East Tennessee. Most of mom's family was uh Appalachian with some Gulf Coast and New Orleans ties as well. Her parents met as toddlers at a birthday party in Macon, Mississippi.

SPEAKER_02 5:59

Um they dated young, huh? They really did.

SPEAKER_03 6:01

We got a little uh write-up that ran in the paper about that party from 1927. And so my grandfather, uh Whitney Jones, was uh MSU educated, civil engineer, uh World War II veteran, ended up becoming uh career naval captain in the C in the Seabees, uh the Civil Engineering Corps, the Navy. And so they lived all over. When mom grew up, she started kindergarten in London, she started at high school in California, uh with DC and South Carolina, some other places mixed in. But when her parents retired, uh she was about 16, they moved back to Macon because all their family was for the most part still in Mississippi. They bought land and a big house.

SPEAKER_02 6:42

Now, were they in a big city in California?

SPEAKER_03 6:45

They were in uh Port Winemee, about an hour north of Los Angeles. Okay. So yes.

SPEAKER_02 6:50

So bigger than Macon, Mississippi.

SPEAKER_03 6:52

A little bit, a little bit. And that was uh quite an adjustment for my mom in in several ways, but she, you know, she did it beautifully. Um and you know, it I think it's a testament to how important it was to her parents to keep her close to her Mississippi family. I mean, every time they could come home, they were with them. So, you know, Miss even though, yeah, she went to high school in California and you know, had these different moments in other parts of the world, she was always a Mississippian. Mississippi was always home, and I think the expectation was that she would always come back to Mississippi. They did, came back, and they they didn't get unpacked good before uh my grandfather got diagnosed with cancer and he passed away at 51 years old, and she was just 16 years old. And so it was just my my my uncle, my my mother had an older brother, uh he's still living, he's a retired federal marshal, he lives in Tupelo. My uncle Gus, he's incredibly important to me, one of my best friends in the world now. He he he was already out of the house, and so it was just her and her mom for you know quite a few years. And I think that they made each other stronger through that experience. I I really come from very strong women. Uh, and so mom, uh, when it's time to go to college, she wanted to get a little bit further from home than startful, which I understand. Uh, and she ended up going up to to Ole Miss, which is where her brother had gone, and several other members of her family had gone there too. She got an MBA, she went to business school, she got an MBA. She ended up becoming the Deputy Director of Economic Development for the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians. This was when early legislation was starting to come online to establish um the gaming industry. And so she was able to be uh very involved in putting together the financing package that got the casinos down to the uh Choctaw Reservation there, which you know obviously, you know, has had an incredible economic impact on on this part of Mississippi.

SPEAKER_02 8:47

She worked some with Chief Philip Martin.

SPEAKER_03 8:49

She did. He he taught her everything about you know leadership and consens consensus building and crisis management and all these things.

SPEAKER_02 8:59

So back up just a little bit. And you're talking about that for a while it was just your mom and and her mother. Yes. I would imagine that brought them very close together, but also I would expect there to be some tension and turmoil and I mean when uh you know, some with mothers and daughters, which is what we talk about, sometimes there's just the natural tension. And then if the two it's just the two of you, I would think that would uh bring you very close and through a lot of things together.

SPEAKER_03 9:32

I definitely think it probably had an impact on her decision to go up to Ole Miss, you know, just to get a little breathing room, be somewhere di different, have a little room to grow, have a little room to grieve, you know. Um, and and having the experience that I had of my mother passing away when I was 19, having that room to grieve, I think is really important. You're you're forced to grapple with some things on your own, which you're gonna have to do at some point anyway, you know. And I think it helped her establish a little bit of independence that later on she wouldn't have when she got sicker. But it also created a bond between them that lasted the rest of her life. My my grandmother was her primary caregiver.

SPEAKER_02 10:18

How did her mother handle her going to out of town for college?

SPEAKER_03 10:23

I actually think my grandmother was a good idea. Oh, yeah, definitely. Um, you know, because she had they had lived so many places and had had so many wonderful, you know, interesting, diverse experiences. I think my grandmother wanted her to have more of that. For as many bulldogs as we had in our family, we we had a good mix of rebels as well. And um, so she had very organic connections that up there, and my grandmother knew that. Yeah, she was incredibly supportive of her. So now she's in college. Now she's in college. She she got to college and uh she got really active and involved in student government and in Greek life, and the summer after her freshman year, she and a bunch of other folks involved in uh student government, they they took a trip up to Muncie, Indiana to Paul to Ball State University for a conference for college student government kids, and they had to go to this icebreaker event with some folks from other institutions, and the the point of it was everybody wears a t-shirt from the school that they're from, and your job is to go talk to somebody who you don't know. And so my mom was like, I don't know what to do here, so I'm gonna go pick on the guy in the Mississippi shirt. And that guy's name was Sid Salter, and the rest is history.

SPEAKER_02 11:50

So she went all that way to meet a guy from Yes.

SPEAKER_03 11:55

I I do think my grandmother was was a little taken aback when she came home and said, I believe I've met the love of my life. And he's from 40 miles away.

SPEAKER_02 12:05

That's how it works sometimes. That's right. They they had things in common. So that's right. Uh how long did they date?

SPEAKER_03 12:12

Uh they dated all through college. I I really don't think they they had maybe about a six-month cooling off period, as you do when you're in college, but they always came back to each other and and by the end of college, they I think I think that they knew that they were they wanted to do life together, and they got married pretty young. They mom was 22, he was 23, and they started off together.

SPEAKER_02 12:39

Their areas of interest were the same from a career standpoint or or or closest.

SPEAKER_03 12:45

So um, yeah, mom wanted a career. She had her master's degree, she was really, really proud of her education, and she was just sort of a dynamo. She had ideas, she was incredibly creative, she was very confident, and she liked politics. I I don't know that she necessarily wanted a career in traditional, like, you know, campaign politics, but I do think that she had an interest in maybe at some point working for the betterment of the public sector through economic development. And of course, that was going to mean kind of soft politics. And so she was really good at, you know, relationship building with people in power, a lot of people who were older than her and had more experience. She was interested in learning from them. Um, and then I think my dad's job just sort of complemented that. He too built relationships through his work. And I think for a time they really were able to kind of feed off each other and push each other into spaces where they otherwise may not have been quite as comfortable. They were a dynamic duo, huh? Definitely.

SPEAKER_02 13:48

Now, how old was she when she was working for the Missouri Bandit Choctaw Indians?

SPEAKER_03 13:52

She was young. Um, it it was her her first big girl job, right? Um, they they moved to Philadelphia uh right after they got married. Uh, and my dad was working at the Neshoba Democrat, and she was working um out at the reservation, and that was her job until she had to retire with her illness.

SPEAKER_02 14:11

How old was your mother when she realized she had MS?

SPEAKER_03 14:15

I believe she was 24, and she had had some indications that something wasn't quite right when she was in graduate school, so her last year in Oxford, um, she would walk, she lived very close to the Oxford Square, and so you know, she'd walk up there with friends, and there was one evening I think she was walking back from an a a night out and she had on heels and she just like lost feeling in her leg and just tripped and fell. And thought, well, that was weird. And then just sort of isolated incidents over the next couple of years, sh they got married in in that period of time. And I want to say it was in their first year, maybe second year of marriage, they finally realized that this was something real. And so she ended up going and getting a very early m MRI. And from there on they got hooked up with a neurologist and she got her first diagnosis um with primary progressive multiple sclerosis, which is one of the most intense forms of the disease that a person can have. At that time, you know, medicine was not particularly advanced on it, nothing like it is now. So it was a mystery to everybody involved. And it was pretty devastating to them. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 15:37

Yeah, just that realization, thinking of what might be coming and not necessarily knowing, but knowing obviously it's not a great thing.

SPEAKER_03 15:43

Well, it's it's certainly not the thing that you think you're signing up for when you've just walked down the aisle in early twenties and you've got the whole world out in front of you. Your career's going great.

SPEAKER_02 15:54

So what was her personality like? Was she outgoing? I mean, you talk about going you know to the square with her friends and stuff. Was she that outgoing, uh never met a stranger kind of person?

SPEAKER_03 16:06

Uh she was. She was a just terribly confident woman. She was at ease with everyone that I ever saw around. She was brave, she was opinionated, she was a clear communicator, she didn't really have time for a lot of nonsense, and she'd let you know. She felt good about the things that she believed in. She she wasn't aggressive about it. But just confident. Yeah, she was Was her mother like that? Oh, absolutely. We we describe her as a battle axe. Um, and she was, she had to be really tough, especially after what happened to her husband at age of 50. You know, I I used to think that was old, and now I go, Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 16:53

She's younger and younger all the time.

SPEAKER_03 16:55

Younger all the time. Um, so she really lived two separate lives herself and she had to do that alone. So how did her mother handle the diagnosis? You know, I don't know. That's a great question. I I I never really I never really talked to her about that. She wasn't that kind of a she she held her she just dealt with it and that's right. It's it was just the reality. Um, you know, I always sort of heard you play the cards you're dealt. And that's what she did. She adjusted, she pivoted, and the entire goal became take care of mama. When I came along, take care of Kate. And that was the game. So how did the diagnosis change her career? Um, at first I don't think it was very drastic. They were able to, you know, MS even the the strain that she had, which was so aggressive, doesn't typically like younger bodies. And so I think she had a lot of her own physical reserves to kind of get her through really until her early 30s. And the first 10 years were manageable. She, you know, lost mobility, but she was able to work for the most part. I want to say around the time she was 32, 33, that's when she lost the ability to to drive. And at that point, she sort of kind of forced into retirement. So you you weren't here yet. That's right. That she she was diagnosed, I think, 24, and I I don't think they really had intention of having children that quickly, but it became apparent in early conversations with her neurologists that if she was ever going to have a biological child of her own, which was a dream and a goal of hers, always, that they had to go ahead and do it. Otherwise her body would not be able to tolerate the pregnancy, and she would certainly have no hope of you know being able to be any kind of present mom with a child. And so I was born when she was 26 years old. And so d she hadn't had the diagnosis long at that time. She had not had it very long at all. And uh, I think if they had gone for a second and third opinion, they probably would have said, You don't even need to do do that.

SPEAKER_02 19:24

But yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:25

As I said, mom would not be budged.

SPEAKER_02 19:27

Yeah, this is what she wanted to do. Well, it reminds me a little bit of Steel Magnolias when uh in your in in your mom, just in what you're telling me, she would be one of those I'd rather have 15 minutes of wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special. 100%.

SPEAKER_03 19:44

Yeah. It's it's sweet that you make that connection because that moment in that film makes me think of her a lot. Sure, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:51

So they decide to start a family, still working, still working, and doing all the things. I'm sure just the diagnosis kind of looming, but just pushing through, and we're gonna live our life and we're gonna start a family. So you're an only child. What was it like growing up in in that household? What was she like as a as a young mother?

SPEAKER_03 20:12

Oh, I I had the most wonderful childhood. I I can't say enough wonderful things about it. Both of my parents just treated me like a princess every day, every day, multiple times a day. They told me how thankful and grateful they were for me. They told me how important I was to them. I don't know if I always believed it, but but I always heard it. And I and I think deep down, you know, carrying that security with me has been essential to my my success as an adult and being able to rebuild from her loss. That that love has just stayed with me the whole time. They gave me as normal of a childhood as you could possibly expect up to a point. And there was a point where her illness became so severe that we had to really reorient our lives and our expectations of each other around that. But my early, my first, you know, eight, ten years, little kid years were wonderful.

SPEAKER_02 21:29

So sometimes you think of an only child as being spoiled, um and sometimes overprotected. But it seems like they kind of made you strong though. I mean they is there a balance there because you seem like a strong, you you had to grow up fast because your mother was sick your whole life. So there's a maturity, there's a strength. Where did that that come in? Did they kind of teach that to you or was or or did you kind of build that through the the situation?

SPEAKER_03 21:58

I think a little bit of all. of it I also think a lot of it was God. I I think that He knew the kind of child that they needed and when they needed me. And I just sort of adapted to the reality. It was the only reality that I knew. They didn't spend a lot of time dooming about it. Just again, this is the cards that we have been dealt. We got to live our lives. It's the only one we got. And so you know I I knew it wasn't normal. And as I got older there were a lot of ways that the experience would sort of other me away from other girls my age. I remember taking dance lessons and it was time for our our recital photos and I remember being back there and I I didn't have my makeup on like everybody else did. And I knew that like you know something is missing here. Somebody is missing here. But one of the other moms just grabbed me up put some lipstick on me and we went right on.

SPEAKER_02 23:00

You know we got this. That's all right.

SPEAKER_03 23:02

Did you tell me that you loved being an only child that you couldn't imagine having I I did I did love being and it this is going to make me sound spoiled, but I did love being the center of my parents' attention. But it but it wasn't from an from an ego standpoint. It was again from a secure I I almost drowned in a catfish pond when I was three years old.

SPEAKER_02 23:26

Now see that's a true Mississippi story. Yeah almost drowned in a catfish pond.

SPEAKER_03 23:31

I can still see little fishy faces coming right next to me. And my dad uh thankfully Eagle Scout came in and got me out and I I remember I don't you know remember as much about coming out of the water but I but I do remember right after I got dried off they they at the hotel they put me in bed with them and they just wrapped their bodies around me and you know we we slept like that and when I imagine heaven that's what it feels like to me.

SPEAKER_02 24:02

So you had a l a lot of with the sickness there were a lot of tough things.

SPEAKER_03 24:07

What are some of the fun memories that you have uh of your mom mom had an incredible sense of humor even in the worst of her illness she loved to laugh she didn't take herself seriously at all she was confident but she you know she knew she was just any other person. She loved adventure she loved color outside the lines and press on her boundaries and and I think now I understand that that was part of the way that she kept herself healthy. And you know the you you hear people now like maybe who are going through cancer doctors will encourage you know do the things that you feel like you can do. If you can work go to work if you feel like going to church go to church. Try to live as normal of a life as possible because a lot of it is kind of psychological you know it's a marathon not a sprint and if you resign yourself to I can't I won't I shouldn't it'll just stop.

SPEAKER_02 25:15

Yeah you said something that stuck with me when we were first talking about this. It kind of made me think that you know when you lose somebody there's a a tendency to kind of round out the edges to think of only the good things and sometimes put them on a pedestal and the the memory is perfect. And you said you have tried very hard to remember your mother and I'm paraphrasing but to remember her as a woman a a a a a human woman I thought that was interesting and I thought that was very mature. But tell me about that tell me why that kind of I you know I want to have that memory of her as real and not this perfect person because she's human and and how how did you do that?

SPEAKER_03 26:00

I never wanted to after she died I never wanted to enter into a relationship with her where I idolized her and put her up on a pedestal because I knew that if I did that I would never achieve it. I would constantly be trying to be someone else I would not be trying to be myself. You would be trying to live up to yes and I knew that I couldn't I couldn't go chase her dreams her dreams weren't my dreams not all of her dreams were particularly good. You know they may not have worked out you know I I knew that in a lot of ways I was very different from her she was really athletic I'm not I don't care about any of that at all I like to read and that's about it you know um so really what she inspired me to do rather than try to copy paste her finish something that she started I mean she really didn't get a lot of time to start anything what she inspired me to do was just be myself follow my passions because again you get the you play the cards you're dealt you only get this one life you're you was that verbal I mean did she say those things to you or did she just show those things to you and you just knew it almost or did y'all have those conversations? I mean we we we had some conversations but she also showed it through her actions um one one thing that she really demanded from me was independence and competence she the here's a memory I when I was about three we were walking into my grandmother's house and she had sort of a rough driveway and my mom was struggling to carry me and so she put me down on the ground and she just said walk and I had a little care bear figurine in my hand and I said nothing. I just took that little care bear figurine and sat it on the ground in front of me and I said walk from then on it sort of became a theme you know you got to be responsible you got to do a lot of stuff for yourself you've you've got to be aware of and attend to a lot of your own needs. You don't really need to be a problem you need to help your mom and do the things everything that you can realistically do. Did you resent that at any time? Sometimes I mean I think I would sometimes I did especially when I would see other girls my age having everything done for them by their mamas. I had to work a little harder at everything. I had to teach myself to cook. I had to teach myself a lot about makeup and hair and you know things of that nature as I got older.

SPEAKER_01 28:50

Was she a good we always we I always ask this because I I like cooking. Was she a good cook? I think she had the potential yeah she didn't have time.

SPEAKER_03 28:59

Uh she she had a lot of interest in it. And the things that she did make were fantastic. Oh my gosh she had these she made the best Christmas candies in the world. She made like those buckeye balls you know sometimes I call them peanut butter balls. Uh she made toffee you know just some some of these candies that are more like science experiments. If you get it just one degree over it's completely ruined you got to start over she was so great at that stuff. Well now you're known for some cakes. I am known for cakes they're very country and they're not very pretty but they taste good. What are they reminding my grandmother's coconut cake which is a sheet cake and my uh recipe for lemon cake which that's the one you brought to the rotary event that's right.

SPEAKER_02 29:40

Yeah we're standing around and it became these whisper you could hear everybody talking Kate brought the lemon cake there's Kate's cake over there.

SPEAKER_03 29:48

It uh it it wins me a lot of friends.

SPEAKER_02 29:51

And that was your grandmother's no that was yours that's yours. That's just one that I found. Coconut was my grandmother's I gotcha.

SPEAKER_03 29:58

So you can claim that one as your own yes things got harder when you went to college was that when she really right about then when she started to turn I I think so um there were really two moments um one big one was when I was in ninth grade she had a real turn then where she started to lose mobility in sort of the core of her body she had no strength to even kind of sit up you know so there was no more going in a wheelchair going in a cart getting in a car things of that nature that had allowed her a degree of autonomy and independence and normalcy. And that ended up resulting in several months at Methodist rehab in Jackson and I mean mama effectively lived there and that totally upended the the daily routine of our lives that was the closest she ever got to you know what we thought might be the end. But she came back from it she pulled out of it and she was able to go home and l live at home but from then on it had to be you know 247 y'all were living where we were living in Forest um we we had built a house we when we Which is how far from Jackson's yeah people who don't know the Forest is uh about halfway between Jackson and Meridian on I-20 it's in Scott County the joke is if you put a map of Mississippi on the wall and you close your eyes and you throw a dart at it you're probably gonna hit Forest because it's right in the middle you spent a lot of time in the hospitals I did just to be with especially high school on I did spend a lot of time in hospitals ate a lot of hospital food I had really strong opinions about the cheeseburger at St. Dominic's it was very good and I you know again I I adapted to it I adjusted to it I wanted to be with her it just became what you did it we talked sometime about the new normal but that just kind of became your new normal that was the card I got dealt. Yeah yeah because you mentioned something one time we're talking about hospitals and I was like does it give you PTSD and you said it didn't really oddly I've I feel like I sort of thrive in a hospital setting you know I snap into action I want to help people I want to ask questions checking it's homie in a way because you spent so yeah sort of yeah from the ninth grade to college those were tough very limited years.

SPEAKER_02 32:36

Very you're so your senior year in high school there's a lot going on these days it's amazing how many things are absolutely how were you able to manage that?

SPEAKER_03 32:47

A couple things my parents had an incredible amount of trust in me to do some things independently I got a driver's license I got a hardship driver's license before I turned 15. I don't have the cleanest driving record in the world but for a teenager I did okay I I did the best I could so I was able to drive myself to school and go to some of my extracurriculars. You know one of the things that I'm really proudest of from that period even though it's all sort of a blur I ended up in the Forest High School Hall of Fame. I was in the band I was editor of the yearbook I won most versatile I'm still so proud of winning most versatile at Forest High School and it has continued to be my personality do the most with what you have with the time that you have make an impact and I loved my community I loved my school and I was so thankful to be there that I tried to give them my best and I think I did. Obviously you didn't yeah and I I bring that attitude here.

SPEAKER_02 33:51

Well that might have helped you just deal with some things too definitely in all those stages were there other women that helped you no doubt other women that were really influential in those particularly nine to twelve years.

SPEAKER_03 34:03

Yes absolutely uh several of my school teachers the women in my church at the Methodist church and forest my my church was central to my life it was really the connective tissue between the early years of my childhood when things were quote unquote normal ish right to the end when things were just blown to smithereens my church was there. They were there with me in Sunday school they were there with me in my big moments at in high school when I was in choir and doing plays and all the things that my mom couldn't be there for they were there when we were in the hospital they were there. I think my faith formed out of some of those really prolonged hospital stays where I would spend time with our pastor then a man named Milton Watley who answered some of my dumbest questions about I remember having a conversation with him about the Holy Trinity and just going I don't get it how does this work did you get a good answer to that?

SPEAKER_02 35:24

I did um you know I don't know if it would pass muster at the seminary um but it worked for you yes it did he he put it this way in a way that stuck with me he said he pointed at my mom and he said look at your mom you know how she is your mother but she's also a daughter she's also a wife she's also a sister a friend and she explained it how you know or he explained it how just like that we contain those multitudes and we are all those things right yeah when you're in college you spend a lot of time on the road going back and forth to see your mom and sometimes because I mean when I was in I lived in Atlanta when my dad was sick you had to make those decisions a lot of times is this bad enough I need to go or or are we okay? Of course that was you know it was four and a half five hours but yours was how far?

SPEAKER_03 36:24

Three three and a half three hours.

SPEAKER_02 36:26

So I mean it's not just a hey let's run over. How did you manage how did you manage in college and making those decisions of when to go and I listened to my dad.

SPEAKER_03 36:35

I trusted him completely still do. He's still my best friend in the world. I could hear things in his voice sometimes. I had a really good instinct and I think having a good instinct is a direct result of good parenting. I knew how to listen and observe when something wasn't quite right. And I again I also think it's just God I think it was a God thing. I think he was working on me. But I just had this feeling of I miss my mom. I want to go home I want to see her I want to spend time with her. College is great I love my friends but this doesn't really matter much to me right now. I'm gonna just do my classes and I'm gonna go home and see mama. I also dealt with homesickness in various ways all through my childhood which I think comes back to the amount of security that my parents gave me at home my happiest days were just at home you know the fall semester of my freshman year was pretty normal. I went through rush made a lot of friends spent a lot of time in my dorm I remember a lot of movie nights in my dorm we got went to the football games almost was pretty bad that year. Almus was bad all through college so I wasn't really attracted to sticking around for uh the sports product at that time but I had a pretty normal fall and I got on my feet right I I I built myself a little network of friends. I got my sorority I felt safe up there. And then after Christ I think I came home for Christmas that year and I remember not wanting to go home after Christmas or I mean or not wanting to go back to Oxford after Christmas. I just didn't want to leave and it came up on time to go to school you know in January and it just felt like a chore putting my stuff in the car. I left as much as I could at home. I said I'll come back and I came home every single weekend that spring semester before she died that May the first and it there were times when it felt like the car was driving itself.

SPEAKER_02 38:48

We've talked to women who their mother had uh Alzheimer's or dementia and they call it the long goodbye.

SPEAKER_03 38:57

Did your did yours feel like that also I I don't think I knew a different way yeah I don't know that I knew that I was saying goodbye. I just knew that I felt like time was precious.

SPEAKER_02 39:10

Did she have words of wisdom or things to share with you in those last months in particular I mean she knew felt probably felt it was coming as well.

SPEAKER_03 39:22

Probably but she never said anything like that. Her her instinct was always to protect me and to give me as much normalcy and joy as she possibly could. Even when she was flat her back we were finding ways to stay connected and laugh and talk about anything else. One of the things that I did during that period is I started bringing home my best friends from college. I had a roommate who is still one of my dearest friends. Her name is Sarah Siebert she's from Chicago and she and I were in our sorority together. She came home with me and spent the weekend one weekend. So she got to see Forrest and she met my mom. Another roommate of mine Katie Mulrooney her married name is Dale incredibly special to me she came home for a weekend and there were a couple of others who again I I don't I don't think I ever outright said it. It was just a feeling these are two friends who are going to be friends of mine for life and they were you were wanting to kind of mesh your worlds. I was wanting to mesh my worlds and every year on the anniversary of my mom's death Sarah reaches out to me and she says I am so honored that I met your mom so I did I I tried to bring what mattered to me at Ole Miss home to her. And I definitely went AO Pi because of her Was she at AO Pi?

SPEAKER_02 40:55

Absolutely I was a legacy Yeah and I'm I'm sure she appreciated that too I'm sure she loved getting to a glimpse into your college experience and your friends and Ole Miss and the sorority was those were the happiest years of her life.

SPEAKER_03 41:11

Dad would say oh no it was the year she was raising you. Kids are hard MS is hard the happiest years of her life were college no doubt. And so I had grown up just sort of hearing legend of my mom disco dancing on the square and going to swaps and just living her best life and I definitely think that that kind of got stuck in my psyche and I wanted a little piece of that for myself but I also knew I was smart enough then I don't I wouldn't ever outright said it but that was the one experience that I could just have with her. Not even with my dad not with my grandmother not with anybody else that was me and her.

SPEAKER_02 41:56

Was that intentional when you when you went to Ole Miss or did you kind of piece it together later or was it like I'm gonna go there because I want to have the same experience she did so we can share that or did it just kind of happen organically?

SPEAKER_03 42:10

I knew that I wanted to go to Ole Miss because of her. However that instinct that I was telling you about a little while ago about how I didn't want to put her up on a pedestal when I got to Ole Miss I said okay I'm going to go through rush with an open mind. And I mean I'm just from Forest I'm not super connected in that way. I didn't really know what to expect I didn't know if I would even get into her sorority. And I tried to keep my expectations pretty low. So I went up there and I went through rush you know saying I could be in any one of these sororities. But as the process went on it revealed itself to me pretty quickly that I was going where I was supposed to be when she passed away you st you still made it through that semester? I did. She passed away on May the first which was dead in the middle of of finals and so I was mostly done with my classes. You know there were a couple of I mean all of my professors all the various disciplines you know in your freshman year you got a history class and a science class you know you're kind of going through the the basic core stuff all of them moved heaven and earth to make it so that I did not have to take an incomplete if I didn't want to and I didn't want to I I wanted to finish strong and have my summer to just rest and grieve. I worked but I I mostly stayed home and just rested and that was a real gift to me. I think that had I had to take on falling behind on my plan to get out in four years, that would have been devastating in a different way. And I think it would have had a dramatic impact on my ability to heal and move forward. I was able to stay in lockstep with my friends because of that. Which was a gift.

SPEAKER_02 44:10

You feel like you completed something and now I've got the time to to go through the process.

SPEAKER_03 44:15

No, I don't think mom you know certainly this wasn't her plan, but I think again God, I think it happened at a time where God gave me that kind of opening to go, I can give you a clean break. I'm gonna give you these months to get back on your feet. And then I did, you know, sophomore year I went back up there and that was it.

SPEAKER_02 44:37

How often do you have those moments where um you do something or say something and you just oh that was my mother.

SPEAKER_03 44:46

More than you would think. And it's coming out more the older I get too she had a really famous saying that didn't always endear her depending on the context but it was I'm sorry you feel that way that was her saying you have hit my line I hate it for you I'm done. Yeah you know and she was just not a person who was going to spend a lot of time in conflict with other people. She didn't care about winning or losing she just said this is where my priorities are and what matters to me and if we don't see eye to eye I love you but go with God. And so are you opinionated? Very opinionated you didn't have a choice did you well I don't think so but I th both of my parents were incredibly intellectually gifted. I mean I still think they're just the smartest people that I've ever met and they fed off of each other. I mean they just that and I I remember you know hearing them in the background sort of talking about the news of the day and and all of that and I learned a lot from them. And and you know mom knew she'd had such an experienced youth living so many different places, a lot of different perspectives. You know, she she knew her moral center right from wrong and didn't have a whole lot of time for you know.

SPEAKER_02 46:16

Our mothers are obviously the influence in our life and the inheritance we get from them physical things, mannerisms, all the things but quite often there's other women that have influence on our lives as well. Your stepmom has been that for you also and I would think if it were me I might have some resentment you didn't have much of that.

SPEAKER_03 46:37

No I I like to say that some people get two parents but I got three sheilani has poured her entire spirit into being the best stepmom she knows how to be to an adult child who has been through what I have been through. And one of the things that she has done so beautifully is respect and and help celebrate my mom's memory.

SPEAKER_02 47:10

Did she knew your mom?

SPEAKER_03 47:11

She did she did know her um she you know she she was from Forest as well was worked at the at the newspaper I mean she was with us through some of our hardest periods. There's a timeline where somebody marries Sid Salter and his daughter but she married us the real us you know she saw she saw us behind what was on the pages in newspapers. She she saw our struggles and she loved us through it and she has continued to love us through it, you know. Do you do you call her mother or do you do you just call her Leilani when Uh I call her Leigh or Leylani in casual conversation but now she's me me.

SPEAKER_02 47:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 47:59

Yeah that takes on a whole other and there there's no step me there's no nut of this there just uh and his name is Big Dog there's just big dog and me.

SPEAKER_02 48:07

Mimi and big dog so as we wrap up I often ask what is the inheritance that your mother gave you and then also what are you passing on to your children? You work on a university campus you have influence on young people other than even your own children but what is something that she's given to you and then how are you passing that on to the next generations?

SPEAKER_03 48:32

There's two things one of them is church. For me it's the United Methodist church that's what she gave me that was her church. Raising me in church everything that I love and know and believe about just living life and raising a family and a community comes from her emphasis on making church a a key component of our social lives I think she knew that you needed that fabric to tether you to yourself you needed an inheritance in that way. Wherever you live there was a church for you to go home to and she knew that it was really crucial to help help you keep your moral center the second thing that she gave me was sense of self, a sense of purpose being really goal oriented. I don't give up I don't quit I'm a stubborn ox I don't think it's my best quality but I know who I am what I want and what I believe and I have those same dreams for my kids and my family and my community she gave me a work ethic and then my dad just you know put that in stereo sound they both were just incredibly driven hardworking people and I would not have the success that I have had they not both given me that ambition and that drive and that self-belief I work a little too hard I don't I don't know how to put an away message on my email to save my life but I do have the great thing is I have people now who love me enough to tell me it's time to turn off that give me space to just be a mess and fall apart and not have it all together.

SPEAKER_02 50:22

You still grieve her at certain times? Absolutely I grieve does it hit you out of the blue sometime and surprise you?

SPEAKER_03 50:31

Yes and I lean into it you know I don't I may not throw it all over social media I may not you know I don't have to leave work it doesn't end my day but if I hear a song or I smell something or I see a flower or just anything a a conversation with a friend when someone makes me feel the kind of seen and loved and secure as I felt in that bed with both my parents that's when I feel her and I I think about her I cry and I'm just thankful to have that still in my heart.

SPEAKER_02 51:13

So you have two children I do. Do you have any little stubborn oxes?

SPEAKER_03 51:19

Absolutely I do as as my dad says uh we we all got the kids we deserved out of this deal they are just two of the most confident little kids my daughter is beautiful she's athletic she's strong she's brave she will talk to a fence post I've seen her go up to elected officials the same way that I did when I was three years old you know she believes in herself my son is incredibly athletic and strong I think he's gonna end up being a coach one day uh I taught myself to play guitar a couple of years ago and I practice a lot still not very good at it but I have fun and he will sit by me and he'll hold my tabs up on my phone and he'll go you got this mom I'll mess up and he'll go it's okay just try it again. He's an encourager absolutely is uh and and in a way I have my parents back in the form of my children.

SPEAKER_02 52:15

Uh-huh you know that's a great way to put it the uh it's kind of the thread that just keeps running absolutely well thank you for being here today Kate thank you for having me and as always thank you listeners for joining us today as well I never know what's gonna resonate with you because it could be one line that Kate or our other guests say or it could be a specific situation or maybe the entire story. But I think that today there are certainly opportunities throughout our conversation of inspiration uh maybe an affinity or maybe some insight into the current relationships that you have don't forget to subscribe to a daughter's inheritance and share it with a friend I'd appreciate that and until next time as my mother advised be patient be kind and be fairly