In Memoriam: A tribute to Kemie Nix

My dear friend, adopted ‘Big Sister,’ and Queen Kemie Nix transitioned from this plane to meet her Savior and dear friends last Friday, March 22, 2024. 

Her Memorial Service will take place at Central Presbyterian Church in Atlanta on April 14 at 2 p.m.

My heart is in the coffin with her and I must wait a while. 

It has taken me a solid week to form any sort of language to near what is on my shipwrecked heart. 

Kemie was very well known in multiple circles for multiple things. She was a longtime teacher at the Westminster Schools and did relentless volunteer work with inner-city schools in Atlanta. She was the founder of Children’s Literature for Children which has distributed more than 2 million books across the globe for young readers (She has a library named after her in Kenya). She was an author, a book reviewer, an academic, a lover of and active participant at Central Presbyterian Church, wife, mother, and a devoted volunteer for many causes and so much, much more. 

For context, a portrait of her was part of a mural on a building commissioned for the 1996 Olympics. (Yes, that’s my homegirl Kemie alongside those luminaries!)

But, my relationship with Kemie did not begin with an encounter of her touting her resume. Instead, it began after worship one Sunday when she asked me to come speak to her women’s group. (My job is as Director of Communications at Central Presbyterian Church in Atlanta and, as I remind people, don’t judge the church by me. I’m not clergy, just a worker bee.) 

I, of course, agreed. I spoke at the event. She sent me an email thanking me and brought up a few points I made and a C.S. Lewis quote I can’t recall tossing off and soon a correspondence began. We were both Lewisians – that’s what us C.S. Lewis acolytes call each other – and our conversation began with our affinity for that great man. She only lived 15 minutes west from my home and many weeks of fruitful correspondence evolved into a lunch with my wife and then into just the two of us enjoying many afternoon teas on Fridays where our discussion was rich, verdant, and full of imagination, thought, kinship and a lot of humor.

What brought us together besides Lewis though? 

How did an 80-something year old woman and a man in his late 40s become such close friends?

As Lewis wrote, “The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, “What? You too? I thought I was the only one… It is when two such persons discover one another…or with what would seem to us amazing and elliptical speed, they share their vision – it is then that Friendship is born. And instantly they stand together in an immense solitude.”

That was us. We were lovers of similar tastes in literature, philosophy, and theology. We both grew up in the church world with both of our fathers being ministers and we were the better and worst for it. We loved the hope and grace the Church brought to this dreary world and despised any hypocrisy it held within.

And, we both enjoyed wit and wordplay. 

Those commonalities were a recipe for getting on like a house on fire. 

As we grew to know each other, our relationship shifted very quickly from church member who likes C.S. Lewis to church communications director who also likes C.S. Lewis to something else. 

We slid over the friendship phase quickly and became family. I called her my Big Sister and I say that of course in the complete Southern colloquialism.

Beneath all of that was the inherent draw of the essence of Kemie. 

Her special gift to me was radical encouragement. 

As my friend Augustus Larry Mccolley, a former student of Kemie’s and friend, said: 

“You were always brighter when you were around her.”

It’s true. 

I was.

We all were. 

Kemie made me brighter and brought out the best in me. 

She always expected the best of and from me. 

I imagine that’s her indelible influence on everyone she touched. 

My heart is in the coffin so let me rest a minute. 

Yet, our relationship wasn’t blind devotion or a clique-ish snobbery. 

Kemie is the only person to have read everything I’ve written, including two unpublished books. That may sound vain as far as affection, but to me it was friendship. She loved my work. She encouraged it. She encouraged me with my writing, of course. 

She also, in her divine saintly way, criticized it. I recall one comment where I had compared blowing on a hot cup of tea to the visual of the winter wind rippling across a sullen lake. She marked through a paragraph and wrote: 

“Cut this. Now, you’re just showing off.” 

It made me smile. 

Because she always expected the best out of me. 

I am a man of half remarks, untold jokes and eternal conversations in my head. She helped fill those. I remember the first time we had an official afternoon tea with her famous cheese biscuits, I gave her one of my favorite verbal comebacks: 

“This person insulted me and told me I could not come in. I told him, ‘Who cares? I got kicked out of Harvard for offenses less than this!” 

I was enjoying my wordplay and banter. Instead of questioning me:

“You were in Harvard?” 

Or being disappointed: 

“That is a pity.” 

She tucked her hands under her chin and said: 

“Oh, do tell!” 

That was Kemie to me. There was no way I could have gone to Harvard with my study habits at 17, yet Kemie, because of her belief, assumed the best and, as Kemie is known to do, loved a good story. 

We always shined brighter around her because she expected the best from us. I recall another time, when I threw out a half-quote by the French philosopher Blaise Pascal, she asked, “Mark Wallace, are you sure that is Pascal? I think it may be Descartes.” 

“You’re probably right,” I would say, my face reddening. 

“Oh, who knows,” she replied. “Let’s look it up,” with a smile on her face. 

And we did. 

Wicked smart, my Queen was. 

Again, she made me brighter. 

All of us. 

I could write for hours about her. I could recant every visit and every adventure, and we did have a handful. 

We saw the C.S. Lewis movie, “The Most Reluctant Convert” together with my wife, Martha Kimes and Oscar and Kathy McCloud. 

A few years later, we threaded our way through thick Atlanta traffic to the Ferst Center of the Arts at Georgia Tech and saw the C.S. Lewis play, “Further Up & Further In,” with my wife and Martha Kimes. 

(Yes. We loved Lewis!)

She also introduced me to the aforementioned Augustus Larry Mccolley and I was able to capture a short documentary on their reuniting after 40 years. Link here. 

Kemie was unique. 

I told my wife, she was not an angel. She was an archangel. (And from a grumbling Protestant that is quite the mystical compliment) 

Kemie was unique. 

Yet, her gifts are gifts we can all give to each other. 

Enduring encouragement. Love. Grace. Radical empathy. Curiosity. Expecting the best out of each other and making each other brighter. 

I hope all of us who have been touched by her remarkable soul carry these on into the world so her legacy might be carried out.

Let’s make each other brighter.  

____________________________________________________________________________________

Here is a link to the short documentary I produced on her and Augustus Larry Mccolley reuniting, 

Here is a link to an interview I conducted with her a few years ago

And the poem I wrote after I said goodbye a few weeks ago.

Farewells

By Mark Wallace Maguire

Goodbyes like these should be more noble, 

a hand extending from a rock holding a glittering sword, 

a blessing given by a deep booming voice scattering sand and whirling wind 

a drawing of ash on the forehead or a placing of the hands on heads. 

Not here. 

In a sallow hospice room. 

Lights off. Hallway dim. Blinds closed. 

Nothing, but the cold green of the TV splicing screensaver and advertisements. 

No dignity lingers, 

Instead, prayer. 

Hands joined across just-washed thin bedsheets, 

clasped over eyes shut. 

Bring her joy as she has brought as many joy. 

Give her peace. 

I can summon no more. 

The wind is not in my favor. 

There is no shining sun to cast a wish to or decipher a shadow. 

Only a simple truth, no goodbyes, no adieu, or goodnight, 

Only, a simple truth. “See you later.”