At approximately 11:53 a.m. CST on Thursday, December 21, 2017 a sweet chariot, accompanied by a band of angels, swung low to Room 302 at Faith Presbyterian Hospice in Dallas, Texas to carry Mary Carolyn Miller Harrison into the presence of God. A joyous celebration broke out in heaven as she was reunited with her mom and dad, Willard and Mary Miller and her youngest brother, David, who had gone on ahead of her to assist in the preparations for her arrival. Jesus Christ, God’s Son, personally welcomed her and presented her with a heavenly tabernacle with an eternal lifetime warranty to live in, replacing the one she had been living in during her sojourn on earth, which had become quite worn and tattered. He also congratulated her on arriving just in time to celebrate his birthday with him in a few days. It was quite a party, even by heavenly standards.
We may not be able to match the glory of that heavenly scene, but we can nevertheless celebrate Mary Carolyn’s life as best we can. She was born on September 25, 1944 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where her father was employed at the MIT Radiation Lab, working on the first airborne radar systems. She was the third of five children born to Willard and Mary Miller, having two older brothers and two younger ones. At the conclusion of World War II Willard took a job with the Standard Oil Company and moved the family to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where Mary Carolyn grew up, graduating from Central High School in June 1962 near the top of her class.
Growing up in a family of seven in a two bedroom, one bath home, with four brothers she learned early to contend for herself, developing a sense of independence and self-assurance that would serve her well throughout her life. When it came time for college, knowing that with two older brothers in school her family could not afford to pay her way also, so she took out student loans and worked part-time to supplement what little her parents could afford to give her while attending Austin College in Sherman, Texas.
Following her freshman year Mary Carolyn elected to spend the summer of 1963 in Dallas with the family of one of her Austin College roommates. It was during that fateful summer that I met her on a blind date arranged by my good friend and college roommate, who was dating the sister of one of her other roommates. We had a couple of rather uneventful dates that summer and, in the Fall, she went back to Sherman and I headed back south to Austin, where I attended the University of Texas. I don’t think either of us expected to ever see each other again.
Then, disaster struck! I was the president of the Austin chapter of my social fraternity and my date for Texas-OU weekend fell through at the last moment. This was the highlight of the year socially, and I was without a date. Then I remembered Mary Carolyn and, getting her number from my friend, gave her a call. There wasn’t much going on in Sherman the weekend of Texas-OU (not that there ever was) and going to Dallas for the big bash with a UT fraternity president was too good a opportunity to pass up (bragging rights, you know). But then the unexpected happened; we fell madly in love with each other that weekend and our futures were altered forever.
After burning up the road between Austin and Sherman for many months, Mary Carolyn elected to transfer to the University of Texas in the Fall of 1964. I had proposed to her in June and she had accepted. Then we decided to get married in January, between the Fall and Spring semesters. Our parents made it clear that if we did get married, we would be on our own financially after that. We accepted the challenge and were married on January 23, 1965.
We both worked part-time jobs the next semester and were barely able to make ends meet. So Mary Carolyn volunteered to drop out of school and work full-time for the next year so I could concentrate on my studies and finally graduate. The only condition was that I would allow her to go back to school after I graduated to finish her degree, and I readily agreed.
I did graduate in June 1966 with a degree in Aerospace Engineering, accepted a job with LTV’s Vought Aeronautics Division in Grand Prairie and we moved to Arlington, where she enrolled at Arlington State University (now the University of Texas at Arlington). She received her BA in Marketing the following June and looked for a job. When she could not find employment that would utilize her degree (she had been offered only administrative assistant type jobs), she decided to pursue a Masters degree, enrolling in the MBA program at North Texas State University (now the University of North Texas) that Fall. Once again she excelled in her studies and was given the opportunity to teach undergraduate classes as a Teaching Assistant. She found that she loved teaching at the college level and decided to continue on to a PhD degree, that being the requirement to teach at any major university. She finished all of her coursework for the PhD by June 1973 and began to receive offers from out of state universities to join their faculty. At that time the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) was pressuring universities to hire minorities and women.
In the meantime I had been working on an MBA in Management and received my degree in June 1973. Also our daughter Jennifer Lynn had been born in November 1969. Mary Carolyn loved being a wife and mother and expected that we would remain in the DFW area where she could only find opportunities to teach at junior colleges (the major universities preferred to hire faculty from outside the area). God, however, had bigger plans for her. And for me as well.
And so our journey together began in earnest. After much discussion and prayer (and with the encouragement of our pastor) I resigned from my position at LTV. She accepted an offer from Louisiana State University and we moved to Baton Rouge. Thus began my second career in the construction industry and the first of Mary Carolyn’s ground breaking steps, as she became the first female faculty member of the LSU College of Business. While at LSU, she was selected as the Louisiana state winner for 1979 of the Outstanding Young Women of America award.
Nine years later she became the first faculty member (male or female) to be selected for the new College of Business at CBN (now Regent) University in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Her pioneering feats continued after we moved to Plano, Texas in 1985. She decided to supplement her academic experience with real world business experience by becoming head of the marketing department of a consulting firm in the telecommunications industry. She was involved with many of the major firms at the leading edge of the telecommunications revolution that brought us the Internet and the wireless voice and data communications in today’s smartphones.
After several years in that business, she returned to her first love of teaching, joining the faculty at Amberton University, from which she retired in 2007 and was appointed as Professor Emeritus. Having retired from her academic career, she became more involved in ministering at Grace Presbyterian Church. She was ordained as both Elder and later Deacon, serving one year as co-moderator of Deacons. She co-led a women’s Bible study and served on two Associate Pastor Nominating Committees. She remained actively engaged until the end of her sojourn here on earth.
Mary Carolyn struggled with health issues most of her life, beginning when she was in her teenage years, but she never let that keep her from living life as fully as possible. She loved to travel, to see new things and experience life in other cultures. As a result, we made travel a priority and had the privilege of visiting all 50 of the United States and over 60 foreign countries.
Because she experienced so much pain, she was acutely aware of pain in the people around her and always sought to share their pain with them and uplift them however she could. She loved deeply and freely shared that love with those around her. She always talked and often prayed with other patients during her all too frequent hospital visits (and with one of her nurses on a least one occasion).
In doing this she was fulfilling the commandment of her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who said:
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.”
And,
“So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.”
Mary Carolyn was diagnosed in 1990 with a fatal, incurable liver disease and told that she could expect to only live another two or three years without a liver transplant. She confounded the doctors by living another 27 years. She never got that liver transplant although she was on the waiting list for 17 years (recording yet another first). Each time her condition worsened she rebounded and astounded the doctors once again. She lived long enough to see Jennifer’s wedding to Brice Coleman in February 1995, and later of enjoying her two grandsons, Carter Harrison and Cooper Holt Coleman. All in all she lived a full, rich life.
It has been said that it is not how you start the race that matters, but how you finish. And Mary Carolyn was strong to the finish.
Finally, in December of 2017 she reached a point where she was tired of fighting her illnesses and was ready to go home. This time the trip to the emergency room was her last. She held on for over a week, and only after Jennifer and I had an opportunity to say our goodbyes to her did she breathe her last and pass into the presence of her Maker. As it turned out, she arrived at home just in time to celebrate the birth of Jesus with him in person.
Only then could she say with the Apostle Paul:
“I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith;
Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.”
I want to leave you with one final thought. After he warned those of the church in Corinth against becoming arrogant and judging (rather than loving) one another, the Apostle Paul said;
“I urge you to imitate me.”
We would all do well to imitate Mary Carolyn and love one another as she did.