LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — It's no wonder Carol Barr passed away due to natural causes induced by a heart condition. According to those who knew her best, she spent most of her life offering her heart to others. But leave it to her youngest daughter to sum it up perfectly.
"Last Tuesday when I told the girls mommy went to heaven, little Mary Clay, the seven-year-old said it best; 'mommy gave us the best gift of all: her love,'" Congressman Andy Barr (R-Ky) said.
Barr's eulogy was pitch-perfect, striking the right chord in mixing some humor with emotion.
"Carol used to tell me, 'Andy, if I have to wear a nametag, it's not a date,'" Barr said of the difficulty of being a spouse to someone who works on Capitol Hill.
Barr also choked back tears while saying his wife, "...helped me even when I didn't deserve it."
The 6th District Congressman began his eulogy with the story of how he met the former Carol Leavell. He asked for her business card, which she didn't have in her bag. "I had no plan," he said, before telling us that Carol was big on planning.
Fate would bring them together eight weeks after that business card mishap. Thirteen years later, he was at Southland Christian Church, eulogizing Carol, six days after she passed away in the family's Lexington home.
"She gave a whole lifetime of her heart, in just 39 short years," Barr said, before addressing his two daughters directly.
"So girls, here's the deal, from now on when we see a heart. we'll see mommy."
Nancy Boatman went to middle school with Carol, and the two remained friends until the day she passed.
"Eleanor, Mary Clay, she loved being your mommy. And she loved you, Andy. She was so proud of you," Boatman said during the service.
Barr said Carol's was a life "well lived" and that motherhood was her "crowning achievement."
"What I want you to always remember," Barr told his daughters, "is that mommy is happy in heaven because she loves you. She loved you more than anything else in the world."
He then asked his wife for one last favor, probably because he knew her strength as a planner while acknowledging his own weakness in that area.
"Start working on the plan of all the things we're going to do together when we see each other in heaven," Barr said.
