War Cry - August, 2014 Page 35

The War Cry | AUGUST 2014

tried to track down a lead on the
man she calls my "favorite uncle,"
even trying unsuccessfully a few

years ago to get help from Chicago

police, but that night something
told her to take another stab at it.

Up popped my column in the

Chicago Sun Times

with a photo of

Henry, and Dorothy found herself
looking into a face she hadn't seen
in more than ten years, the face of
someone she had started to believe
was dead.

She was so excited she got on the

phone and woke her mother, Mary

Cosby, to share news of the discovery.
Dorothy read her the story aloud.
Mary, Henry's sister, said she was

so excited afterward that she
couldn't sleep the rest of the night.

The next morning, Dorothy came

to visit Mary and together they
watched a Salvation Army video
on the Internet, featuring Henry's
story. "He seemed more happy
than I've seen him. I've never seen
him smile that way," Mary said.

Not ten minutes later, Mary was

on the telephone speaking with her
brother. And with that phone call,
ten years of worrying, ten years
of not knowing what had become
of her little brother melted away.

"God bless you for putting this

out here, because we would have
never found him," she told me.

If Mary is that grateful to me,

imagine how grateful she is to the
people of The Salvation Army, who
actually saved her brother and
brought him this far in his recovery.

"I think it's a blessing," she said. "He

could not be in a better place today."
She has stayed in touch regularly

with Henry since she found him.

NEXT UP -- HEALING PAST HURTS

Henry's transformation

took another big step forward
when he returned to work.

Captain Powers, the Salvation

Army officer who helped bring Wil-

liams in from the cold that January
night, reports that the Army gave
him a lead on a part-time job and
the employer was "so pleased with
his work that after three days they
hired him full�time!" His sister
said Williams "always loved work-
ing and taking care of himself." She
said that's why she was surprised
he fell so far into the drug life that
he would be living on the street.

Mary confirmed her brother's

account that he had been the victim
of abuse as a young child, although
she told the story a little differ-
ently. She said she never thought of

Williams as being homeless when

he was still living in Virginia, even
though he never had a place of his
own. "He used to live with me. He
used to live with his niece. He
always lived with family," she said.

Henry has learned a lot in eight

months, including what it means to
be clean and sober and to let go of old
hurts. On, June 4, he was reunited
with the family he had once denied.

"I'm pretty overwhelmed, but I'm

good. This was meant to happen.
This is the way life is supposed to
be. I'm actually back on earth again,"
he told me. With a tear dampening
his cheek he expressed his thanks,
with family gathered round in a
room at the Harbor Light Center.

Henry's sister Mary made the trip

from Richmond to Chicago along

with her daughter, Dorothy, and
Henry's two brothers, Able and Ivory.

"There's a lot of change in him,"

observed his sister, noting her brother

was thinner and grayer than when

she last saw him, but also something
more important. "He's different on
the inside. His heart is different.
He thinks different," she said.

A Chicago businessman paid

for a minivan for the family to
drive from Virginia and put them
up in a hotel. He asked to remain
anonymous, but said he was moti-

vated by a sense of family. "Fam-
ily is very important," he said.

Williams knows that now. "Ev-

eryone needs a family," he told me.

That reality started to dawn on him

during his recovery as he saw relatives
come to visit other residents of the
Salvation Army treatment center.

Reunited: Henry with brothers Ivory and Able, niece Dorothy and sister Mary.

Photo Jacqueline Rachev/The Salvation Army