“Enjoy the now because you’ll look back and all those moments in life will have gone by really fast,” advised Julie Godwin. “Just enjoy everything while it’s there.”
Over the years, Julie Godwin has learned just how important it is to appreciate each moment in life instead of simply rushing through everything.
When she was in high school, she enjoyed playing sports and being part of some extremely successful seasons.
“I graduated from Clarkdale High School,” Julie reminisced. “I played softball in high school, and we had a couple of state championship runs. I was a pitcher in slow pitch. It was before the fast pitch days. They kind of transitioned over to fast pitch when I was in high school, but I never loved fast pitch. I was used to slow pitch, and that’s what I enjoyed doing.”
It was also while she was in high school that she decided what career path she wanted to take. Her decision was the result of an assignment she was given in class.
“When I was a senior in high school, we had to do a research paper on careers,” remembered Julie. “The teacher gave us a list of careers in alphabetical order, and accounting was the first one on the list. I looked it up to see what it was and what it was about. I thought that I could do that, so that’s as far as I went on the list. I did the research paper and decided that I could do it. I ended up graduating from high school and going to Mississippi State University. I now have a business degree and a minor in accounting.”
With her degree, she ended up using her skills working for hospice. Eventually, she was blessed to work alongside Lynn Taylor when she started Hospice Care Group, LLC.
“I started working part-time for a hospice when I was in college. I was doing a little of the billing and paying some bills and that kind of thing. It was just accounting stuff. I fell in love with it,” declared Julie. “Then, I met Lynn, and we worked together for a little while. She decided to open her own hospice and called me and asked if I wanted to come work for her. I asked if she was going to do it the right way since we had both seen it done the wrong way. She told me that she was going to do it the right way, so I told her I would come to work for her if we were going to do the right thing. We’ve tried to do the right thing for the past 21 years. It’s not always the most financially minded decision, but it’s always the best decision for the patient.”
Over the years, she was able to learn different parts of the job, which allowed her to seamlessly take over other areas to assist more when needed.
“Lynn did more of dealing with the doctors and the marketing stuff. I did more of the administrative stuff like dealing with new hires, payroll, billing, and stuff like that. It was just the more financial end of the business,” explained Julie. “Once you do your job long enough, you can do it blindfolded. It just gets easy after a while. I got to where I could do my job and some of Lynn’s as well. It just kind of transitioned over. Even before she was diagnosed with cancer, she started phasing out just a little. She would do a little less, and I would do a little more, so it wasn’t too much of a huge adjustment when she ended up being diagnosed with cancer. We made do as she went through everything with her cancer, and we’re glad she’s cancer free now. She just recently retired.”
With Lynn’s retirement, Julie officially took on the administrator position for Hospice Care Group on April 15. She truly loves her job and the individuals she is able to work with each day.
“My coworkers are amazing,” proclaimed Julie. “They make the job easy because they know what they are doing. They get after it and get their job done. It makes my job so much easier, and I’m so grateful for them.”
Along with her job, there is something else that she loves: her family. She is proud of her family and what they have accomplished.
“I married my high school sweetheart. We started dating when I was 16. We’ve been married for almost 22 years now,” informed Julie. “We have a 20 year old daughter, Abby, who is a sophomore at Mississippi State. She’s getting her degree in chemical engineering. She’s very smart, has a 4.0 GPA, and has never given me a minute struggle. Then, I have a son who is a junior at Enterprise, so he has one more year and then he’ll graduate. He’s still at that stage of figuring out what he wants to do after high school, whether it’s college or an apprenticeship or the military. He’s still deciding what avenue he wants to take, but he’s a smart kid and will figure it out.”
She and her family have made some great memories over the years just spending time together doing different things that they enjoy.
“My whole family loves to do anything water related,” declared Julie. “We have a boat and love to go to Smith Lake in Alabama. We go there pretty regularly. We can’t wait for Archusa to have water in it again so that we don’t have to travel so far to enjoy the water again. We love doing anything water related, like wake boarding, skiing, tubing, and stuff like that.”
As her kids were growing up, she would volunteer and help with different things that her children were involved in. Now, she is adjusting to a new season in life as her children are working towards their own futures a little more.
“I’ve coached my fair share of softball teams and different summer league teams and that kind of thing when the kids were growing up,” expressed Julie. “I don’t do that now because we’re at a different stage. We’re in a stage between doing things like carting them around to games and other things. My son just started driving last year. I’ve never really had much free time before, so now with my daughter off to college and my son driving himself in the last year, I’m still getting adjusted to having a little free time. I’m so used to being busy from when the kids were little and we were running here and there and everywhere. Now they’re more independent, and I don’t completely know what to do with the free time just yet.”
Although she doesn’t have as much to do with summer athletics or other things like that anymore, she is very active at the church she attends.
“We go to Causeyville Baptist Church, and I teach a Sunday school class there,” stated Julie.
When she first started transitioning to this new stage in her life, she ended up with a favorite child. Both of her children are more than aware of her favoritism at this point.
“I have a favorite child. Her name is Ruthie, and she’s a little mini-weenie,” explained Julie. “When my daughter went off to college, I got the dog to replace her. She’ll be two this summer. I’m kind of obsessed with my dog. She’s the favorite child, and my son and daughter know it.”
No matter what each day brings, Julie will continue to do everything she can to enjoy the moment and be a blessing to those around her. She will continue to spread joy to others with her optimistic attitude and caring nature.
