Carol Ann Archie's children have been telling her they were going to nominate her for Mother of the Year since they were young, but she told them to wait.
Now after growing up and surviving tragedy together, Archie's kids can really appreciate their mother and all she has done for them, and her being selected as the Greenwood Commonwealth's Mother of the Year for 2007 is that much sweeter for the whole family.
Archie, 52, and her husband L.V., who is a detective sergeant with the Greenwood Police Department, raised their children - Aundrea Ellis, 31, Llvee Archie, 26, and Michael Archie, 24 - in Greenwood, but all three now live in Memphis.
Archie works as a Title 16 claims representative for the Social Security Administration, and she says it took some skill to handle a full-time job while trying to raise three kids, which is a full-time job in itself.
"You definitely have to be able to multi-task," Archie explained. "You have to be able to get dinner ready, put the clothes in the wash and make sure the kids are doing their homework."
She says things often got hectic, and being flexible was the key, especially with two sons who would come home at the last minute and tell her they needed 60 chocolate chip cookies, or whatever project was due, to bring to school the next day.
"When you're in the throws of raising children it's hard to tell if you're doing a good job or not," Archie said, "but now when I sit back and reflect on it, I think I handled it well."
Her children would surely agree with that statement.
It was Archie's youngest child, Michael, who was the one to nominate her for the award.
In his letter to the Commonwealth he described his mother's dedication to her children, but also her ability to nurture all others she came into contact with.
At one point Aundrea was in nursing school, Llvee was playing football at Jackson State University and Michael was playing basketball at Mississippi Valley State University. Needless to say, Archie spent many weekends on the road supporting her children in these endeavors.
"No matter what we were doing, we could always count on our mother for she was our biggest fan," Michael wrote.
While he was playing at Valley, Michael would often invite his entire team over to the Archie's house for dinner so that they could enjoy a home-cooked meal. Coming home and being expected to cook a meal for 20 people - let alone 20 hungry basketball players - could not have been easy, but Archie never let her son down.
It was in January of 2003 that the Archie family came face to face with disaster.
After one of his basketball games, Michael was with a group of friends at a club in Itta Bena when someone fired a gun into the crowd and a stray bullet struck his spinal column, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down.
Archie described it as a "life-altering event," not just for Michael but for the whole family.
At the time, Archie and her husband promised Michael they would do whatever it took for him to recover and have a sense of normalcy in his life again.
That meant finding the best possible location for his rehabilitation, so upon recommendations from several people Archie brought her son to the Shepherd Center in Atlanta, a facility specially geared towards young people with spinal cord and brain injuries.
"That first day it was so heart-wrenching for me, because when I went in and saw all those people in wheelchairs it finally hit me that this was my son's life now," Archie said.
Of course, Archie could not let her son stay that far away from home by himself, so she chose to sacrifice her life in Greenwood. She had her job transferred to the Atlanta Social Security office and found an apartment near the Shepherd Center where she could live until Michael was ready to come home.
"She had to wake up at 4 a.m. each morning, ride the Marta train one hour and then walk six more blocks in order to be at work on time. I heard some stories about some strange people, but not once did she complain about the situation," Michael wrote. "After work, she would go cook me one of her hot meals and come to the hospital and stay until visitation was over. She always made sure that I had everything that I needed and most of what I wanted. In times of adversity, she displayed a level of perseverance that is unmatchable."
Michael's mother gives him most of the credit for staying positive and soldiering through that difficult period though. Archie explained that he has always had a very competitive nature, so even under those circumstances, he would not accept doing anything less than his best.
"At first he had to prove to himself that life could still go on," Archie said. "After a couple of years he realized, 'I'm okay.'"
Michael now tells people that he is not handicapped or disabled, he is just a person in a wheelchair.
"I would like to hope that Michael's upbringing was a contributing factor to his positive attitude," Archie said.
Archie is equally proud of her other children as well.
Her daughter Aundrea is a registered nurse at LeBonheur Children's Hospital in Memphis, Llvee is a reconciler at Nike Inc. in Memphis and Michael is an order fulfillment and contact representative at the Social Security office in Olive Branch.
Llvee and Michael share an apartment in the city and Aundrea has a 3-year-old daughter, Anniyah Carol Holcomb, but they all still make time to see their parents at least once a month.
Archie has plenty of free time now that her kids are all out of the house, and while she used to send her husband and sons outside to work on the yard, she has discovered a new-found passion in gardening, which she was introduced to by retired co-worker, Marion Howard.
Of course, her real new interest is her granddaughter, who consequently, was born the same year Michael had his accident.
"I can't say enough about spending time with my grandbaby - I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world" Archie said. "She's the apple of my eye."
Archie is thankful for how well her children have turned out, and since it is Mother's Day, she is willing to give credit where credit is due.
She said that both her mother, Mary Richmond who is now deceased, and her step-mother Lorene Miller always emphasized the value of education while she was growing up, which she in turn taught her own children.
She said her mother taught her to be a good Christian, let her make her own mistakes and was always fair in raising her children.
"A lot of the way that I am I attribute to my mother," Archie said.
