‘Get it done, make it happen’: Mom’s encouragement a constant for Beaufort native

When Mary Catherine Gaines and Marius Payne part ways, they always end it the same way.

“I love you,” one says.

“I love you more,” the other replies.

It’s been that way for years. Their own mother-son version of a game of tag.

Payne gets up from his seat to greet several of the customers as they walk onto the patio at Bricks Bar & Grill. He knows most of the employees and many of the customers. That comes with the territory when you live in what was once your grandparents’ house in Beaufort’s historic district.

“I grew up here with my grandparents and my mom,” he said.

College took him elsewhere. The Clemson sunglasses give that away. A career in finance brought him to the Home Depot corporate office in Atlanta. A career change to IT led to a job at the University of Miami.

But home is Beaufort County. And now, as an IT contractor, he’s back where his mother worked so many years ago, the Beaufort County School District.

A single mother of 2

Gaines was Ruffin born but Beaufort bred. She grew up only a few houses down from where Payne now lives.

She attended Robert Smalls Junior High School. She married a Marine from Washington, D.C., and briefly moved to the nation’s capitol. But she settled under her parents’ roof in Beaufort with her two children, Payne and his sister Stacey.

“The opportunities were … well, we didn’t have many in Beaufort,” he recalls.

But back in the ’70s, the school system was one of the top employers in the area. And so Gaines taught second grade at Lady’s Island Elementary.

Growing up behind the bricks

As a child, Payne was involved in every sport. His sister Stacey, now a Miami-Dade Police Department detective, was into ballet.

There was “Sesame Street” and “Captain Kangaroo.” There were afternoons playing “behind the bricks,” the neighborhood beyond Beaufort National Cemetery. And there was his mom, teaching him to write the alphabet in big letters at home.

But she also encouraged him on the field.

“My first year of Little League, I was so tiny that my pants were too baggy,” he recalls while looking in the direction of his old ball field, just beyond the Boundary Street rush hour traffic. “It looked like I was from the 1920s.”

He was too embarrassed to play.

Until mom stepped in.

“Those pants are OK on you,” she said.

And that made all the difference.

“I’ll never forget that.”

‘Make it happen’

After more than 30 years of teaching, Gaines retired in 2012. She remarried and lives on Lady’s Island. She attends Community Bible Church — and tries unsuccessfully to get Payne to do the same.

As she has always done, she pushes and encourages her son to do more.

“Get it done,” she says. “Make it happen.”

“I was bagging groceries two years ago,” Payne laments. “I had to get it done.”

Payne lives in what is now an official South Carolina cultural district.

“Do something with that,” his mother will say.

And there’s always talk about him getting involved with City Council.

“She wants me to be above the rest,” he said. “My mother makes life at my age, 48, a pleasure to still be living.”

The future

On this day, Gaines is attending a funeral for a 5-year-old who died from illness.

Payne points across the street to the Beaufort National Cemetery.

One day, Gaines will be buried there.

Their game of tag will be over.

But he’ll come back to the restaurant, where he knows so many. He’ll sit on the patio. He’ll look across the street.

And he’ll smile.

This story was originally published May 7, 2016 at 11:07 PM with the headline "‘Get it done, make it happen’: Mom’s encouragement a constant for Beaufort native."