By Anne Ruisi
Roy L. Williams knows you can’t put a timeline on grief. His brother, Army Maj. Dwayne Williams, was one of the 125 people who died when terrorists slammed a hijacked American Airlines passenger jet into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.
“I have learned over the last 23 years to stop focusing on how he died, but on the happy moments,” said Williams, who will be the keynote speaker at Lift Your Spirits, Community Grief Support’s annual gala on July 18 at the Vestavia Country Club.
“I love the title” of the event, said Williams, who is public relations director for the Birmingham Public Library. “Moving from pain to purpose is what you are trying to do.”
Community Grief Support is a nonprofit organization that works to enhance the quality of life for bereaved adults who face the challenge of rebuilding their lives without their loved ones. Lift Your Spirits is a casual, festive event to celebrate lost loved ones, with music, dancing, a buffet and live and silent auctions. This year’s theme is “Flamingling with Friends.”
Grief is hard, but it’s OK to have fun, too, the organization noted in a recent press release. The event gives permission to celebrate life
Dwayne Williams was a Jacksonville native who attended the University of North Alabama on a full scholarship. He had been an Army Ranger and paratrooper who served in the Persian Gulf War and just two months before Sept. 11 was posted to the Pentagon.
His brother noted that but for a quirk of fate, Dwayne Williams could have survived the attack. He’d sent his office staff outside the Pentagon building for a break and opted to stay behind.
One of those staffers told the Williams family, “Dwayne sacrificed himself so that I can live. That’s just the type of leader he was,” Roy Williams said.
Dwayne Williams was 40 when he died and was survived by his wife and two children, who were teenagers at the time. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
Roy Williams wrote about the terrorist attack on the Pentagon and how he and his family dealt with their loss in the book, “911, God Help Us: A Journalist’s Tale of Faith,” published when he was a business writer at The Birmingham News.
In the years following the family’s loss, Dwayne and Roy’s mother, Pearl Williams, organized memorial services and events in her son’s memory until she was admitted to a memory care facility a few years ago. Roy Williams said he will continue the legacy of tributes, this year on Sept. 11 with a free concert at the Trussville Entertainment District beginning at 6 p.m.
“You know, I’m sort of at the point in life where I‘m at peace and I‘ve moved beyond grief to peace right now,” Williams said.
