A mother's grief: Pearl Williams recalls the first year without her son

By Matthew Creamer
Star Staff Writer
09-11-2002

Pearl Williams holds a photo of her son, Maj. Dwayne Williams, who died in the attack on the Pentagon one year ago today. Below, a display of Williams's medals and a flag in his honor in his mother's home in Jacksonville. Photos: Stephen Gross/The Anniston Star JACKSONVILLE The heat can move people in strange ways. It sears Pearl Williams — not her skin, but her heart, her mind, her soul. Hot, everyday things, like the stuffy insides of a closed-up car in the summer or the warm rush of air from an open oven, send her racing through the past, always to the same place: The day when a plane slammed into the Pentagon, engulfing a portion of it in blazes that killed her eldest son, Army Maj. Dwayne Williams. “Because my son burned to death because of all that jet fuel, my thoughts go back to what he went through,” Pearl Williams said in a recent interview. “I immediately get emotional, and I have flashbacks of that day.” With the help of prayer and a counselor, she is trying to work through her anxiety. Though the progress has been slow — a “snail’s pace,” she calls it — hers is not an anxiety with deeply buried roots. She believes the vivid way she often relives her son’s death is a result of the intense way in which she lived it. The 10 agonizing days awaiting word of his fate. The military briefing in Washington where she was told his office had taken a direct hit. The sight of the scene of his death from just 50 feet. The identification of his remains and then more waiting before they could be buried. All this for a mother who, in either the saddest of ironies or the happiest of coincidences, had spent the previous year becoming closer to her son than she had ever been. To Pearl, the closeness that came before the end is just one sign of the many she has divined over the past year of steady torment and spiritual and emotional healing that has come only in fits and starts. In an interview with The Anniston Star two weeks before the anniversary of Sept. 11, the Jacksonville resident laid bare her emotions in describing the local fallout of a global tragedy and sharing the insight she has gained from distance and faith. “The Lord has a way of revealing,” she said. “God has strengthened me through this. He has walked me through it. But it has been a very painful journey.” Signs In his years in the Army, Dwayne Williams had served in dangerous places overseas, places where an American in uniform could easily become a target. His mother, who visited him in many of his stations, was fully aware of this, which is why she was surprised when worry overtook her during his final move, a seemingly simple one in the summer of 2001 from Fort Leavenworth, Kan., to Washington, D.C. The relationship between the two grew while Dwayne and his family were in Kansas. He would call two or three times a week and every Saturday at 8 a.m. He was planning a reunion for a family that hadn’t been together since 1997. Dwayne’s Pentagon assignment was to be the pinnacle of a long career that saw him work his way up through the ranks of the military. Yet, for reasons she didn’t fully understand, Pearl Williams was worried. She attributed this concern to the feeling that something would happen to her. “I had an uneasiness about the trip,” she said. “I felt very apprehensive. The closer they got to Washington, the more apprehensive I became.”

Pearl Williams and Horace Williams talk about the loss of their son as the one-year anniversary of his death approaches. Photo: Stephen Gross/The Anniston Star In retrospect, Pearl sees this as one of the many emotions and events that pointed to the tragedy. She feels the same way about the uneasiness she felt in the morning hours before the attacks and a night the week prior to Sept. 11 when, inexplicably, she woke up in bed screaming. The past year, filled with public memorials and media interviews, was a time for understanding these signs even as she tried to push forward with her life. A devout Christian and Bible scholar, she turned to God. She began to see a counselor to help with her grief. She and her family pushed through the holidays and birthdays, the first ones without Dwayne in the world to help celebrate. “There were a lot of firsts,” she said. At least on the surface, there is no bitterness about their loss. Instead there’s a grudging acceptance and the effort to see the tragedy in a positive light. “I know a lot of Muslims,” said Roy Williams, Dwayne’s youngest brother. “True Muslims don’t believe in hate; they believe in a God of love. If you go through life bitter, you’re not going to grow.” The Williamses are grateful for the support given by the military as well as the community at large. “We’re humbled by the outpouring of love and how others embraced our pain,” Pearl said. “People felt the need to reach out.” Said her ex-husband, Horace Williams, “I realized it was something that couldn’t be helped.” Progress A ritual died in the flames. The phone usually remains silent on a Saturday morning. Still, when it rings now, Pearl Williams jumps. “Losing a child is like losing a limb,” she said. “Things will never go back to normal.” Indeed, normal changed forever for the family. Dwayne’s widow, Tammy, and their two children have moved back to Alabama and her hometown of Florence. Family members have tried to fill the void creatively. Dwayne’s brother Kim wrote and recorded a song about the loss. Roy, a reporter for The Birmingham News, and Pearl are each working on their books about coping with the loss. Today Calhoun County will get its own memorial to Dwayne Williams, a granite obelisk topped with an image of the Pentagon. “We need to remember,” said Ken Rollins, a member of the effort to get the memorial. “It changed my life. It changed the world as we know it. That day changed the lives of everyone.” But for the Williams family, the commemoration does not end today. There’s at least one more day to mark, Oct.13, when Dwayne was buried. Though neither the pain nor the journey will end there. Roy longs to get past the public memorials and the media calls so he and his family, which includes a 3-year-old daughter and a 6-month-old son, can resume their lives. “It gets easier as time goes by,” he said. “Though it has been very painful in the past few weeks.” Pearl expects the going to remain slow. “My progress cannot be measured in days, weeks or months,” she said. “It’s measured in degrees. It’s going to take me a long time to get on with my life.”

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