Memorial Day used to be a time of celebration in the Williams household.
Kevin Williams, a U.S. Navy chief petty officer, was the grill master, cooking up chicken, sausages and other mouth-watering delights.
His wife, Vanessa, and children, Jamal and Journi, enjoyed the food and family time, whether it was a game of Monopoly (Kevin’s favorite), listening to music or watching a little TV.
“It was always a big deal,” said Vanessa Williams of the holiday family time.
They celebrated that way Memorial Day 2013.
The next weekend Kevin was going to buy Jamal a car. The Fourth of July holiday would see the family going to Disney World with Kevin’s brother and his children.
None of that happened. Kevin Williams disappeared the next day.
He left a family behind that struggled to cope with the sudden loss and a mystery that hasn’t been solved.
The Navy initially said he abandoned his post at Mayport Naval Air Station, but his wife has been adamant he’d never do that to his family or the Navy. He loved them both too much.
More than two years went by before Vanessa Williams heard the news she hoped wouldn’t be true.
Kevin Williams’ body was found in a pond not far from The Avenues mall parking lot where she last saw him after a brief argument — the “stupid” kind that couples end up not realizing why they were combative in the first place.
More than three years later, the Williams family still has no closure.
But on Monday, it did receive some sense of respect for Kevin Williams’ legacy — his name was one of five added to the Veterans Memorial Wall.
The annual ceremony is a way to remember those who served, with more than 1,700 names etched in black granite.
“Even though it’s hard seeing his name there, that part is important to us,” said Vanessa Williams.
Even more important to her is finding details to the end of her husband’s story.
A family and the ‘quiet life’
Kevin and Vanessa Williams first met at in the mid-’90s at LaGuardia Airport.
New York had become home for both after he moved from Trinidad when he was 14 and she from Guyana at age 19.
She was a 24-year-old receptionist at a cleaning service. He was a 20-year-old manager at a coffee shop who found out she was a coffee fan.
“He would give me free cappuccinos because he liked me,” she said with a sheepish smile.
The two became best friends who took a few years to figure out they were meant to be together.
He was younger, well-mannered, quiet and sweet. He was going to Queensborough Community College for computer science before changing course to the Navy.
She remembers the day he enlisted — May 5, 1998 — and after boot camp in Chicago, they moved to Jacksonville, where he spent his Navy career as a machinist.
It wasn’t as hectic or fast-paced as New York, but that was a good thing. He wanted to go into the country, deep into Callahan when he retired, to boat and fish.
“He likes the quiet life,” she said.
He liked the family life, too. Kevin and Vanessa married Dec. 8, 2000.
He entered Jamal’s life when he was a little over a year, but the two were as close as any father and son could have been. Kevin and Vanessa Williams had Journi in 2002.
Work, school, play. The days turned to weeks, weeks to months and months to years for the family as it grew up.
Memorial Day 2013 was supposed to be just another holiday together, not the last.
The next day was a big one for Journi. She was among a small group of students being honored for their dedication and work in elementary school at a ceremony at the University of North Florida. A proud moment the family would enjoy together.
It didn’t happen that way.
The day it all changed
Vanessa Williams remembers the daily ritual.
Kevin Williams woke up the next day like normal. He brushed his teeth. Put on his gym clothes. Kissed his wife five times (it was just his thing) then put on his Calvin Klein Obsession cologne — she didn’t like the smell.
On the way to Mayport Naval Station, the alternator in Kevin Williams’ car gave out near Interstate 295 and Merrill Road.
She had told hime many times to get rid of that car. She told him again when he called her.
“I was not being nice,” she recalled.
It is part of the pain she still feels. She admits she was moody that day and the back-and-forth banter left her upset.
Little things like him working so much — especially because he wasn’t the happiest at work at the moment — had built up.
After charging the battery, he made it to a dealership near The Avenues for a repair.
Kevin Williams thought about going into work. A day after a holiday, duties had piled up and they’d be waiting for him if he took off.
But it was close to 1 p.m., half the day had disappeared. She thought he should call it a day and head across the street to the mall with her to pick out a dress for Journi to wear to her ceremony.
He agreed to the shopping trip, but the earlier agitation came back during the car ride together.
“He made our marriage so easy,” she said smiling, holding her fists up in a joking manner. “Sometimes, he would just pick a play fight.”
He egged her on that day, not in a hurtful way but enough that — well, she just needed a minute.
So in The Avenues mall parking lot, she walked away without him. She thought he’d follow her after a minute or two or he’d be there when she came back with Journi’s blue dress.
Neither happened. He was gone.
A difficult two years
She called his phone, only to see it was in the car. She saw his military phone, too.
Nowhere to be found, she had to quickly pick Journi up from school. The two raced back to the mall to look to no avail. No luck at the dealership, either.
The ceremony at UNF went on without Kevin Williams in the audience.
She knew something was terribly wrong.
The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and Naval Criminal Investigative Service became involved in the missing persons case. The day after it went public was the worst, Williams said. The news was all over TV and social media.
Jamal and Journi took it extremely hard and blamed their mother for what happened.
“If mom and dad didn’t get into a fight,” started Williams, tears trickling and her voice shaky. “Mommy went into the mall and left daddy.”
The children needed someone to blame. They blamed her for a long time, she said. Both went into a deep depression, she said, and Jamal and her don’t have a good relationship anymore.
Journi has her good days and bad days as she prepares for high school. When they get angry, said Vanessa Williams, the feelings unearth themselves again.
“I can’t even describe what those two years were like,” said Vanessa Williams, describing her own emotions. “I went insane.”
Every day went by with no news. Why wasn’t there any news? Wasn’t anyone looking?
In July, more than two years after he disappeared, Kevin Williams’ body was found in a pond not far from The Avenues. He was still wearing his Navy uniform, still had his wallet and identification.
How they came upon him was in itself the result of another tragedy: Law enforcement and the community as a whole were scouring the area desperately looking for Lonzie Barton, the toddler whose disappearance gripped the area.
Kevin Williams didn’t have any gunshot or knife wounds. Officials say foul play wasn’t suspected, but the cause of death was ruled undetermined.
The lack of answers has meant a lack of closure.
Vanessa Williams still wants answers. She wants people to care as much as she does.
Monday didn’t provide answers, but it did provide some caring.
Grateful for honor, desperate for answers
Wearing a red blazer with her daughter at her side, Vanessa Williams stood before the symbolic wall Monday to tell Jacksonville a little bit about who Kevin Williams was.
A great and loving husband.
A great and awesome dad.
A loving son and brother.
A dependable friend.
No one is perfect, Vanessa Williams said, but Kevin Williams was the closest to perfection she has ever known.
Throughout her few minutes, the emotion rose up her throat and through her lips, audible to all who heard.
“I never gave up on him,” she said. “As I know he would never leave us.”
Her children and grandchildren will be able to see Kevin Williams’ name on the wall for decades to come, she said last week.
For that, the family is thankful, she said, but it needs to be just a start — she wants to find justice for Kevin Williams. She needs it for herself, too.
To find out why the man who would never abandon his wife, children or country simply disappeared for no apparent reason.
Not knowing is almost as hard as not having him still here.
@writerchapman
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