Liz Coss' Obituary
“What is grief, but love enduring?” A tribute to the endless love of Liz Coss
Frances Elizabeth Clement Coss (née Clement), January 30, 1965—September 30, 2025, was an unfailingly loving mother and wife for over 35 years. She almost never went by Elizabeth. To her friends, she was Liz, to her husband Dave, she was Lizzie, and to her sons, Matthew and Michael, she was mom. She embodied love and generosity in more ways than any piece of writing could do justice to, but here we share a few memories of Liz that reflect the depth of her beauty and goodness. We will miss her so much more than words can explain.
Liz was born and raised in Durham, North Carolina, “in the shadow of Duke.” She was the daughter of Adin Lee Clement (“Paw paw” / “Pop pop” to his grandkids) and Frances Ellis Clement (“Grammy” / “Nammy” to her grandbabies). She attended Jordan High School, UNC Chapel Hill, and then Wake Forest Law School, where she met Dave, “the older Yankee next door,” who she married shortly after graduating with her JD in 1990. Liz and Dave relocated to Charlotte, North Carolina, where they built a home and an enduring community, and where they had their two sons, Matthew (1993) and Michael (1996). Frances and Lee’s influence on Liz shone through in big and small ways, from the beautiful gardens she cultivated around each of our homes over the years (she inherited her dad’s green thumb) to the immense community she built in her work and non-work lives (just like her mom, who knew everybody from the neighbors to the maintenance staff to the cafeteria workers in the Croasdaile Village retirement community where they lived for many years).
Liz was an unparalleled source of love, a giver of all that she had every single day, and had seemingly boundless generosity and energy. She was also a human cookie factory—she would make multiple hundreds of Dave’s mother’s butter shortbread cookies and decorate them for any and every occasion. She baked cookies for anyone and everyone. Sitting on her kitchen counter right now, as this is being written, are all the ingredients for the next batch she was preparing to make for someone to show them her love.
She always welcomed people into her home, from family to neighbors to baseball team family members to her sons’ friends from all corners of their lives. Everyone was always given home-cooked meals, and to this day, we are receiving memories of Liz’s spaghetti, her breakfast spreads, her chocolate chip cookies (“I double the chocolate chips, obviously”), and the week-long Thanksgiving food marathons she meticulously planned for our family each year.
No holiday was too small to merit decoration or celebration for Liz. Even as we came to her house this year in wake of this terrible tragedy, we could not help but smile through our grief at the way that the house is decked out, inside and out, in Halloween and fall decorations, including many that Mike and Matt hand-made (with minimal skill) over many years in school—all of which, of course, she kept. Christmas was an unparalleled decorating extravaganza for Liz every single year. She maintained and built a Christmas village display which grew every year and was ever-more-creatively configured. She even hand-built a baseball field to commemorate Mike and Dave’s shared love of baseball, which sat proudly in the village every year. She decorated four trees each year, including a Christmas Vacation-themed tree, which always had two of every ornament, so that eventually, Matt and Mike could each take those and start their own additional trees. Though no holiday went uncelebrated, none were quite as big or as beautiful as Liz’s Thanksgiving. From her mega-table tablescapes to a week-long menu of food which was both enough to feed a small army and also never saw a repeated dish (she made that many different dishes every Thanksgiving week every single year), Thanksgiving was truly a wonder the way she did it. Family gathered from near and far and left pounds heavier than they arrived. For not only the entire week of the holiday, but for over a month before every year, Liz would barely sit down to rest. She was always planning, always cooking, always decorating. As Dave so often says, “she was at her best, her brightest, her happiest, when she was giving to others, and she was always giving to others.”
Liz was also a documentarian of big and small moments in life. She filmed so much of Matt and Mike’s childhood, and we often watched those family home videos together and laughed so hard our sides would hurt. (A favorite episode from those was one day when two-year-old Michael paraded around the downstairs of our first Charlotte house in nothing but a diaper and repeatedly yelled up the stairs “Dave! Dave!”—not that he knew so much that “Dave” was dad’s name, but instead, that yelling “Dave” (whatever that meant) up the stairs seemed to be an effective way of summoning dad to the main floor of the house). She cataloged photos in albums for every year of our lives and recently made huge collages to commemorate family trips to different places. The most recent one of these is from a Liz and Dave adventure to Australia and New Zealand, for which two collages are now proudly displayed in our living room. (There are even family adventure photo collages on every wall of the primary bedroom’s bathroom in the house.)
Liz made each house a home with her love, her meticulous décor, her presence, and her insistence that people come, stay, and “make themselves feel right at home.” She was always busy with new projects, new ideas, and new ways to bring warmth and love into other peoples’ lives. She was so committed to her boys’ lives and school community, in fact, that for the entirety of their elementary school years, she took Fridays off and came to school to eat lunch with them. She was a Class Mom, coordinated their elementary school Family Fun Nights, served as PTSA President in their high school, organized fundraisers, managed concession stands, facilitated athletic events, served as a volunteer judge for competitions in school organizations, and so, so, so much more.
Imagine—she did all of that and still had a successful 30-year career as an attorney before relocating to South Carolina and beginning a new chapter at St. James High School. In her legal work, she had a particular gift for breaking down dense legalese into manageable, jargon-free steps for clients and their families, whether they had $1 or $10,000,000 to their names, to be able to understand and put into action. She did so much pro bono work that she might have even mildly annoyed a partner or two in her firm because she just wasn’t willing to over-bill clients for her time and expertise. She recently summarized all of her experience and legal advice into a book with a football metaphor as its guiding tool, which Dave, Matt, and Mike will see through to publication in her honor.
So many words come to mind to describe Liz, and none of them quite accomplish the task of capturing all that she is to us. Profoundly generous. Giving to a fault. Deeply kind. Passionately curious and supportive of her children’s many pursuits. Unfailingly loving and welcoming. Warm—so, so warm. She touched so many peoples’ lives with everything beautiful and loving that she offered so freely, and the world is a darker place without her in it.
Liz’s love and generosity endures permanently, beyond her passing, in her husband Dave, her sons Matt and Mike, her brother Tim, his wife Cynthia, her niece and nephews and their families (Will and Alexis; Alex, Emi, Reese and Ruthie—who Liz loved as if they were her own grandkids; Dana, Craig, Hudson, and Lynlee, and Keith), her sister-in-law Janet and her husband Neil, and our uncles and aunts by extended family Alyce, Richard, and Colleen, as well as an indescribably large network of love and light in friends, colleagues, neighbors, and other loved ones. We will continue to honor her memory in each holiday celebration, each cookie we bake and share, and in each moment we have together in family and friendship. We will miss Liz beyond measure, beyond anything words can explain, but her love is so deep that it will endure in us and through us forever. We are so profoundly grateful for all that she was, all that she gave, and all that we have to treasure as we hold her memory close.
What’s your fondest memory of Liz?
What’s a lesson you learned from Liz?
Share a story where Liz's kindness touched your heart.
Describe a day with Liz you’ll never forget.
How did Liz make you smile?