EAST COBB - As Charles Carithers prepares his flower shop for one of the biggest holidays in the floral business, Mother's Day, he is reminded of his mom, who died in 2007, and his father, who died four years earlier.

Carithers Flowers, in east Cobb, was started by Charles' parents, Larry and Jane Carithers in 1973, and has blossomed into one of the southeast's most prominent flower stores.

"This season is when I think of her the most," Charles said of his mom, "and it's bittersweet because we're staying busy, but I'm reminded of how much I miss her. I feel like she and my father are still here, watching out for me, reminding me to make the best decisions possible, because growing up, this was more our home than our house was."

Charles and his four sisters were raised around the shop, learning their father's design techniques, watching their mother's kind, friendly and considerate approach to sales. Charles and his friends even spent one summer in high school helping to lay the bricks on the current shop, built in 1984, after his parents moved the business from a strip mall 200 yards away.

"We did everything as a family. During weddings, we would go to dinner then go as a family to help clean up the flowers. I have so many memories around this shop, these flowers," Charles said.

Larry Carithers found his passion for flowers when he began working for Owens Flower Shop in Marietta at the age of 12. He eventually worked his way up to manager, Charles said. When his father decided to open his own shop in the emerging east Cobb on Powers Ferry Road, then just a two-lane road, Charles said his mother decided to quit her job as an English teacher at Osborne High School and make the shop a husband and wife business.

Although Charles' sisters married and moved away, he decided to come back to his "home" and join the business after college graduation in 1991.

"They let me be in charge of the then-new wholesale business, and I made mistakes along the way, but I credit them for giving me those opportunities to learn and grow," Charles said. "Because now, I can't ask them what they want to do. Every decision is up to me. But I always keep their values and dedication to quality in mind."

The shop now has more than thirty delivery centers throughout metro Atlanta, but the main office remains in east Cobb and Charles said he would always keep the business local.

Both Charles' parents died of heart attacks in their 60s. Jane Carithers was extremely active in the Cobb County community, as she served on the WellStar Foundation, was the YWCA Woman of the Year in 1999 and was appointed by then-Governor Zell Miller to the Georgia Department of Human Resources.

Larry Carithers was the creative mind behind the store, creating designs still used in the shop today, Charles said.

Since it's opening, Carithers Flowers has decorated five presidential inauguration ceremonies, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward's wedding, and a Southern Living Magazine Showcase Home.

Charles said the shop has experienced its ups and downs over the past few years as the economy took a turn for the worse, and that he and his parents even decided to sell the shop a few years ago, but decided not to when his sisters insisted they keep it. Many orders that come through the shop are via the Internet. Charles said the business landscape has changed since technology has progressed.

Jim Niarchos, who has been a customer of the shop for almost fifteen years, said the friendly, family-owned atmosphere is what keeps him coming back.

"The Carithers family is made up of such wonderful people, and there's never a time that I come in here that I don't feel Larry and Jane's spirits surrounding us," Niarchos said.

As Charles leaned back in the chair of the office once inhabited by his father, Charles pointed to a picture of his mother and smiled. "Mom said we celebrate all stages of life here, and Mother's Day, well, I like to think it's all hers."