Carter Davis’ Mother Keeps Former High School Lacrosse Player’s Memory Alive

Carter Davis was a ball full of energy with a hallmark smile almost plastered onto his face from the time he was a little boy. By kindergarten, he had an innate wisdom and desire to help others that parents can only hope their children develop as they reach adulthood.

“He was the champion of the underdog,” Michele Davis said. “He found kids, whether it was in kindergarten or during his last year of life in high school, he would help kids who didn’t have a voice or were misunderstood. He was the kid who would befriend them and find some way to lift them a little bit.”

“The last year of his life.” Carter might have provided a voice to his peers who felt they lacked one, but it’s hard for anyone — including his mother, a high school English teacher and author — to say those words. Or find words to expand behind their cruel meaning: Carter was 17 when he was tragically shot alongside a friend and high school classmate behind a Publix in Georgia. He had just taken his senior photos and celebrated his 17th birthday and was preparing to start his senior year of high school in mere days.

Somehow, Davis has found the words to describe her son’s death. She and other North Georgia mothers wrote a book, "Grieve Like a Mother, Survive Like a Warrior" (Ripples Media LLC). Released  Aug. 5, the book details how 14 mothers coped with grief over losing their children.

Davis also wrote a poem that her former student, Slater Nalley, turned into a song and used in his American Idol audition, bringing judges Lionel Richie and Carrie Underwood to tears.

Part of the song goes, “Now you visit me in shadows I can't reach, and I can't run. In the dark night, you always found the sun. A moment breaks and you appear. And for a second, I swear you're standing right here. I'd give anything for love to be enough to make it true as the memories come racing into view, these traces of you.”

Lacrosse is involved in many of the Davis family’s memories of Carter. He got into it while living in Colorado in fourth grade after a friend named Alex came over and showed Carter, then a soccer player, how to play.

“Carter just thought it was the coolest sport he had ever played in his life,” Davis said. “He and Alex would hit thousands and thousands of balls on Alex’s garage door.”

Sports helped Carter as the family moved around because his father decided to attend medical school, taking the family to Georgia, South Dakota and back to Georgia again. He always had a team — a family — and was simply easy to love. He might not have been in lacrosse hotbeds, but he embraced the idea of growing the game before it became a hashtag.

Before hashtags even existed.

“He was so passionate about the sport, and he would ask the kids in class if they would join the team and play, even if they hadn’t played before,” Davis said. “He would rally, go to lacrosse stores, ask stores to donate equipment and ask kids to meet at parks for pickup games. He would go to practice early, stay late and help kids learn the sport he loved.”

Carter’s discipline and reliability made what happened days before his senior year in high school especially out of character. Davis woke up at 5:30 a.m. without an alarm and ran to check in his room.

“He wasn’t there, which was alarming,” Davis said.

She tried calling him, but he didn’t have an answer. She and her husband, Jeremy, panicked, but thought perhaps he was having an early breakfast with the friends he had met through the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. He did that sometimes. Davis traced his iPhone to a Publix near Roswell High School, which Carter attended.

“I put my 8-year-old in the car and off we went,” Davis said. “When I got there, there were SWAT teams and a helicopter. Police barricades were everywhere. I saw Natalie Henderson’s dad at the barricade. The police wouldn’t let us go behind there, and I knew the kids were gone at that moment.”

And so, a grieving process she never signed up for when she welcomed Carter into the world began.

“You’re beyond devastated, of course,” Davis said. “But it was strange. Immediately, I was so unbelievably thankful that Carter was ours because he had this light about him wherever he went. I will be devastated for the rest of my life, but I get to carry his memories with me. ... I hate that we have to live this life without him, but I am thankful for the huge life that he did live.”

Carter Davis and Natalie Henderson’s killer was sentenced to life in prison without parole in May 2017.

The Davises hadn't lived in Georgia very long, but to the lacrosse community, they were family. The Atlanta Blaze of Major League Lacrosse sponsored a “Knight to Remember” night in his honor (appropriate because Roswell High’s mascot is a knight). They handed out t-shirts and had a dedication to Carter at halftime.

“From that moment, without even thinking about it, I knew we needed to honor him by celebrating the sport and camaraderie because that is what Carter loved,” Davis said. “He was fiercely competitive, but he loved the camaraderie of it all.”

Carter’s parents decided to create a game to honor their son.

“Jeremy said, ‘Well, Carter loved doing pickup games. Why don’t we just create a huge pickup game with kids?’” Davis said.

And that’s what they did. In 2018, 150 kids came from 16 different high schools. Professional players also made appearances.

“It was so much fun,” Davis said. “They all put their sticks in a big pile, and we divided up the sticks. They played for almost four hours, rotating in and out. Nobody kept score.”

The score wasn’t the point. Two years ago, the family moved the game to the school where Davis teaches. Many of the players these days didn’t know Carter personally, but they know his mother — and his story — and the participants span ages.

There are retired Division I players (“They call themselves the ‘Old Men’s Lacrosse League,” Davis said) and Davis’ middle school students. There are referees, no pads and smiles all around.

“I'm an English teacher, and watching the game is something that kind of strips your words away,” Davis said. “I get teary-eyed to think about it. Kids are cracking up at each other because their friends who don’t know how to play lacrosse are playing alongside friends who are getting heavily scouted. Everyone is just having a blast. My son would be proud.”

Davis might sometimes be at a loss for words. But she finds it when she puts pen to paper — or fingers to keyboard. Those words can be incredibly impactful, like on American Idol.

“I tell the kids about six weeks into the school year about Carter — I just take a day and tell them about what happened and most importantly, the lessons about life,” Davis said. “Slater took to the story, and he was inspired by it all. So, when I wrote this poem, he snapped a picture of it and surprised me with a completed song two weeks later.”

American Idol discovered him on TikTok and invited him to come to Nashville, asking Davis to introduce him to the judges. Nalley moved on and finished in the top 14 on the latest season of the revival.

The publicity expanded Davis’ platform. So, too, has the run-up to the publication of “Grieve Like a Mother, Survive Like a Warrior.” In a way, by using her voice to help lift others, she’s continuing Carter’s work.

“I love teaching English and helping kids find their way and see what’s special about themselves,” Davis said. “That’s true for me with grief, too. Every single human carries differentiated experiences related to losses in life, and I thought it was important to tell our stories.”

Davis took the lead, deciding to use her English teaching chops to collect the stories of the 13 other mothers and shape them into chapters.

“This book is telling everyone about our children and tragedy,” Davis said. “But more importantly, it’s a book that we wish we had that tells different strategies we used as grieving mothers. We’re distinct and different. It was fulfilling. It feels amazing that people, even psychologists, are saying that this book is important and will help people.”

And that mission to help others will continue with podcasts and other future projects with the Warrior Moms.

“We’d love to have retreats, help the families in Texas who lost their precious children,” Davis said. “There’s such a need for creating that space.”

It’s a space Davis will create with Carter’s voice in her heart and playing on a loop in her head — another short but poignant refrain.

“One of his favorite phrases was, ‘You've got this,’” Davis said. “I hear that often, ‘You’ve got this, Mom.’ I just think he would be laughing out of pure joy at just how proud he is of his dad and his sister, Greta, me and [our] extended family and friends that are celebrating him.”