Matriarch: When Her Star Returns to the Sky

We belong to one another.

Belonging comes from choosing one another, and this bond is what makes love resilient.

A matriarch is the heart of home—the warmth, belonging, kinship, and strength that binds generations. Lessons of resilience, growth, and choice move from generation to generation, a legacy of love. Today, we honor the transfer of this legacy as our matriarch, Judith Ann Lamar, returns to the heavens. Mims’ wisdom, compassion, and indomitable spirit will forever guide us.

Lamar Creative Co. bears my family’s name. My parents are a testament to the values they instilled in me—creativity in service of strategic problem-solving, and my grandmother, Judy Lamar, embodied the very core of our commitment to equity and purpose in all that we do.

In the first grade, I learned that my grandmother and her sisters were given up by their birth family and placed in South Carolina’s care system—a system that, then and now, can be profoundly broken. She shared stories of those years: the care she extended as a big sister, tucking her younger sisters in bed each night before returning alone to her own group home. Some Christmases passed without gifts, prompting the heartbreaking question from her youngest sister, “Does Santa think we’re worthless too?” But even then, she met the moment with warmth and quiet strength, saying, “Oh no, we are absolutely worthy, and we don’t need presents to see that.”

Mims held tightly to the truth, "I am worthy of love and care, even if my bio family forsakes me." It was our first lesson that family isn’t only a matter of blood but of choice and love. Belonging comes from choosing one another, and this bond is what makes love resilient. Divorce, adoption, loss—whatever life brings—as long as there is love and the choice to love, you have family. After all, we belong to one another.

This foundational truth—that we are all born worthy of love—shaped her strength and our family’s guiding values. Over time, I watched her grapple with this truth, sometimes embracing it readily, other times struggling. She knew the world and how its systems of oppression—particularly her experiences of poverty—work to devalue us. Yet she stood firm in her knowledge, her life’s purpose magnified when the aptly named, Mama Grace, or Meemaw, adopted her.

Her second lesson was that womanhood is a strength. It was because of her that I became an advocate for gender equity. When she was put into foster care, her biological brothers were kept, but she and her sisters were not. Learning this at age six ignited an unshakable truth: I walk with worth and belonging in this world not only because I am a woman but because all people are intrinsically valuable and worthy of love and belonging. Our worth is intrinsic and absolute, end of story.

The third lesson was in her storytelling—a legacy she passed on to us. Like any true matriarch, she spoke our family's truths with an alto timbre that danced through space and time and will visit us in the days ahead as we grieve. In her stories, we can find light and growth even in darkness. She taught us that wholeness comes from self-reflection, resilience, and the power to shape our own narratives. And just as she did, I’ll carry these stories onward, with darkness and light that we each uniquely shoulder.

My matriarch was always my greatest champion; now, I’ll be hers. To honor her legacy, not only through my business but through the work I do every day, I will continue helping others overcome the very injustice she fought against. Because of her, we—the generations ahead—have lived richer, fuller lives. Lives filled with love, adventure, and the freedom of choice. Her light has returned to the stars, but we will carry her spirit forward. And when the moon grins down at us, we’ll know she’s sharing one last story—a story of love, laughter, and the unbreakable bond of family that chooses one another through time and space, always.