Cloudless Sky

When I was little I liked to think that the clouds were the floor of heaven. A light, fluffy floor that was fun to walk on. So when I looked up at the sky on a sunny day, I would think about the angels in heaven walking around just on the other side of those fluffy white clouds. And the converse of the fluffy floor would be on a cloudless day you could see right up into heaven and everyone up there could look down and clearly see what was going on down here on earth. Saturday was one of those cloudless days, well almost cloudless....

Jesse Williams was the first person that I knew for sure went to heaven. Beyond a shadow of a doubt. I remember hearing "the imagine song",as my daughter calls it, by Mercy Me on the radio about a week after he died and thinking, he is there. Is he dancing or is he, in awe, still? He went into the hospital at the end of a week and the entire church body waited to hear any news. As Mr. and I drove into the church parking lot that Sunday he was in the hospital, it felt strange. No Williams were going to be there that day. In particular Jesse and Patty. Jesse and Patty were always there, at everything. Walking shoulder to shoulder, or hand in hand. They were there.

About a year or so prior Patty began a small group bible study with myself and just a few more "young" moms like me. We were all working full time, at the time, and this was a study geared toward the working mother. I was excited to be spending time with Patty and learning from her, but part of me kind of wanted someone who was the career-outside-the-home kinda lady. Now, I was not at all complaining because those nights in her comfortable living room hearing all kinds of stories of when she first met Jesse in high school and raising her children were, and still are, priceless. But my selfish little self.... Then, when he died, I realized it was not about me at all. Maybe, just maybe, God brought us all together for our weekly coffee and wisdom meetings - for Patty. We continued meeting. Those first few weeks, maybe months, we listened. Just listened. We cried and hugged and listened.

Bob and I went to the Auburn/Clemson game in September later that year. It was one of those hot, hot, ho-ot September days. But in Auburn, on game-day, it's just part of the experience. It was a night game, and according to the unspoken rule of night game tailgating, we arrived in town around lunch. It was one of those Saturdays you see everyone you want to see, and some you weren't expecting but are glad to "run into them". It was the game I realized, and most of Auburn realized, that #2 was the real deal. It was a game you stayed to the absolute end, and then some! But the next morning, the reason why we remember that game-day changed. It was announced in church, Virginia Jacks, granddaughter of Patty Williams, niece of Ken and Caroline, Kirby and Mary Blake, daughter of Kevin and Ginger had been killed in a car accident in Auburn, after the game. Once again that year we came together in Patty's comfortable living room and listened. Cried, hugged and listened. She said she was "glad Jesse was there (in heaven) because Virginia just wouldn't have known anybody up there."

And last Saturday was Virginia's Run. A fundraiser for our son's school started last year in her honor. Our son, the budding photographer, took some shots for me.

Patty walked in the fun run this year, I did not.

She had a ball.

She is listening to Jessica, Ken and Caroline's daughter. You might want to remember the name, Jessica Williams.

I think she is telling her new friend, "I'm gonna do that one day!"

By the time the race started, the clouds were thinner and thinner. Those in heaven could have reached right down to all of us. I think a couple of them did.