Issac Bailey | Faith bends in crisis, but holds true

The first time I heard Brenda Williams suggest she had given up on the possibility that she would walk again was in court Tuesday as she told Circuit Court Judge Paul M. Burch why the woman, Katherine Johnson, who put her in a wheelchair, should be given the maximum sentence for her crimes.

"I don't have a forgiving heart at this time," Williams said about the purse-snatcher who ran her over with a car and dragged her on the pavement of the Myrtle Beach Kmart's parking lot as she escaped Williams' attempts to try to stop her.

"Ten years is not enough," she told the judge after refusing to look at Johnson during a tearful confession and apology. "You are crying today. That's fine, but I cry every day. That lady drug me 100 feet and left me there like a dog. My children, my mother are suffering with me. I will be in this chair forever. She will be able to walk. It's awful to see my mother struggling to give me a bath."

Williams is not only struggling a year after the life-altering incident with an adjustment to living with three paralyzed limbs. She's struggling with how to best utilize a faith that requires forgiveness and the ability to see the bright side in even the worst circumstances.

She said her positive side - not the hurt and anger that spilled out Tuesday in court - will be on display today during a 5 p.m. "Brenda Williams Celebration of Life" service and fundraiser at Mt. Olive AME Church in Myrtle Beach.

"What's happened has happened and I can't change it," she said Friday from her Conway home. "I'm not happy about it. I can only move forward so much. But I am going to keep pushing until every limb I've got moves. The next time I see that young lady, I want to walk into that courtroom."

Her family is also in a fight for their faith. They are thankful, grateful, that they no longer have to wonder if Williams will die from her injuries, as they did for the first couple of days she was in intensive care at Grand Strand Regional Medical Center last November. They still recognize that miracle.

They are thankful for the donations and help that poured in from across the Grand Strand last holiday season. That help eventually included a wheelchair-accessible van and saved Williams' home fromforeclosure. The company Williams worked for, Avis-Budget car rental at Myrtle Beach International Airport, has allowed her to remain on its insurance much longer than required, which has helped to offset her massive medical costs.

And Williams was recently recognized by the Myrtle Beach City Council for her actions.

But every day the family has to face the reality that Williams, a once hard-working matriarch, is paralyzed. That has changed - and continues to change - everything.

Helping Williams bathe and get dressed and eat and get to thrice-weekly rehab appointments, with their $30 copays and other costs, and helping keep her spirits high, those tasks continue long after the public support has waned.

"When it comes to my child, I do the best that I can because we are not getting much outside help," said Betty Bey, Williams' mother, who is a retired nurse with medical ailments of her own. "By the grace of God, I'm holding up. You will go to the limit for your children."

In the year since Williams chased Johnson out of that Kmart, instinctively responding to the calls for help from Johnson's elderly victim, the family's challenges have multiplied.

Williams' relationship with her two children, one in high school, one in college, has been changed forever as they all grapple with their new reality, of having to help take care of her rather than having her to take care of them.

The public donations helped save Williams' home, but it and the monthly mortgage payments had to be supplemented by Bey's retirement savings.

Williams' company won't be able to keep providing insurance coverage indefinitely. She so far has been denied access to Medicaid because the disability payments she receives count as income. Fighting to get her eligible for long-term Medicaid requires endless paperwork, something Bey somehow manages to juggle even while spending all day, every day physically caring for Williams.

"I want my momma to be able to get up and have a cup of coffee with a clear mind without having to plead for me," Williams said. "She wakes up with papers in her hand. I can't wait to get better and pick up a phone and do things for her."

The family is also in the midst of a lawsuit against Kmart, a company which months after the incident planned to give Williams a large, flat-panel TV for her heroics. They don't know when, how or if that lawsuit will be resolved. Kmart officials couldn't be reached for comment on Friday.

And on Tuesday, as one chapter of their saga ended, with Johnson being sentenced to prison for 12 and a half years, another one began. While they were in court, someone broke into Bey's home and shortly thereafter a fire began, gutting the house she's owned for three decades and killing her 10- and 17-year-old dogs. She needed help to replace the clothes she lost.

Bey has been living in Williams' home while taking care of her and used her own home as a periodic get-away, to de-stress.

That outlet has now been taken away.

"It's just like a death when the house is gone," Bey said. Penny, her 17-year-old dog killed in the fire, was "old but doing good for her age."

There's no sugarcoating what a split-second decision by Johnson to steal a woman's purse has led to. The Williams' family doesn't pretend that it has been an easy or joyful transition.

But they don't plan to give up on their faith. If nothing else, that's the one area they said they will remain steadfast, no matter the unending challenges they must confront every day for the foreseeable future.

"I am very excited [about today's Mt. Olive celebration]," Williams said. "My positiveness, I will speak from my heart. I truly believe I will walk again. Prayer changes things all the time, and nobody has control over that but God. And he does not make mistakes."