(upbeat cheerful music) - Will you consider this?

You need to turn your grief around, and make it work, and find some peace with it.

And that's exactly what our guest did in the past, the near past.

And he's gonna continue into the future.

And he just happens to be the father of the person who is directing this show right now.

This is William Sewell Jr. And his son Micah, is our Director.

So thank you Micah, for bringing us information about your dad, and welcome.

- [William] Thank you.

- So now you get to see what Mike is up to.

- [William] Yes.

- Okay, so let's first start off with who you are, and where you came from.

- Well, my name is Williams Gregory Sewell Jr.

I'm actually one of 13 kids.

- [Christine] Blended families?

- Blended families, yeah.

I'm from Chicago.

- South side.

- From the south side of the city.

Grew up in a bunch of different neighborhoods, but most of them, kind of a little rough.

Went to school there, graduated.

From there, went to Illinois Institute of Technology for college.

- [Christine] And majored in engineering.

- Mechanical engineering, yeah.

- Yeah, wow, interestingly, I did read your book, but we'll get into that, but from south side of Chicago, African American, and very intelligent.

I mean, you went to the IIT, and so that was kind of tough to grow up and be smart in a rough neighborhood.

- [William] Well, absolutely.

- So what happened back then?

- As young person, I was picked on a lot, got into a lot of little fights and scrimmages because I was answering all the questions and all that stuff.

And so I would get picked on and get in fights, and it was hard.

My sister would try to stick up for me as much as she could, but as I got older, I kinda learned some defense mechanisms as to not to get into the fights, to hold back a little bit.

- Well, that was good.

- Yeah.

- That shows how smart you are.

(Christine and William chuckling) Well, you were, and you still are.

But I mean, just going through every day, everyday life, you also spent some time down in Mississippi with your grandmother, I believe, and that was because your parents had separated?

- Yes, so my sister and I, it was my sister and I, and my brother.

My brother stayed in Chicago with my mom.

My sister and I went to Mississippi with my grandmother, who was a Pentecostal pastor (chuckling).

And my grandfather was there.

And my grandfather used take us out fishing every Saturday.

So I have fond memories of that.

- [Christine] Good.

- Although fishing is not my forte nowadays.

- [Christine] 'Cause you have to sit still.

- Yeah, and it's muddy.

- I'm with you.

And there's worms and everything.

- Yeah.

- Okay, got it.

All right, so you were a Christian from a young age.

You kind of lost your way a little bit, but came back.

And how exactly did you come back to being a faithful young man when it's very difficult?

Your hormones were just going crazy like all young men do.

So how did you manage to get back to your Christian values?

- Well, so there was always something in me, right?

My grandmother, she was in Mississippi and we were in Chicago when we finally came back about nine months later.

But she was always like, she would come out to Chicago and visit my parents, my mom and her siblings.

She was one of seven.

And she would always bring a very peaceful attitude towards us as far as Christ is concerned.

- So she wasn't preaching, she was teaching?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

- A lot of it was with your life, and she would come and love on you all the time.

but she would do it to her whole family.

She had this very unique knack of loving everybody so much so that everybody thought that they were her favorite.

- [Christine] Okay, I like that.

- And I didn't realize it until her funeral when everybody got up there and said something.

- That they were her favorite.

- Yeah, they were their favorite.

(Christine and William laughing) But she was such loving in that way.

And I think that's what drew us back into the faith.

And then I always had this inkling from that experience that I had to come back, and I kept bugging my mom about it.

And so one day, she said, "Okay, we're going back to church."

And so we ended up going back to church.

And then as we went back to church, it started to develop again.

The church we went to at that time, we didn't stay there.

We went to another one, a smaller church where I was able to kind of cultivate a little bit more, get more mentoring.

And I started practicing, preaching at a young age of 17 years old.

- [Christine] Really?

- Yeah.

- Yeah, so you were practicing your faith, and you really wanted to, at some point in your life, get married and have a family.

And then you met Shana who was a little bit older than you, and she pretty much didn't wanna have a whole lot to do with you in terms of being a boyfriend.

- [William] Sure.

- Is that right?

And that was at the Illinois Institute of Technology?

- [William] That's correct.

- Okay, all right, so tell me about how that whole thing came about?

Well, we'll get into your journaling here in a minute, but, okay.

So you met her and?

- So she was about five years older.

So she was in grad school when we met.

And so we just became friends, talking as friendship.

And then one day, I think we were down in the lounge or whatever, and somehow, I think I asked or she said, "You wanna come up and watch some TV?

Wanna watch a show?"

And when we started doing that, we started having more intimate conversations.

Intimate in a sense of more personal conversations.

- And you found out that she was also a Christian.

- [William] Yes.

- And had strong beliefs.

- Yeah, and she had just come back to the faith at that point.

And so, from those conversation, I just remember these deep conversations that we would have with each other.

And so much to the point where we were just from that one visit, started having more.

And then we would have ice cream, go to the 7/11, and get some ice cream and a pint of ice cream, whatever (chuckling).

- And watch and talk.

Yeah, okay, got it.

- And so it was that the friendship developed that way and we realized that, well, we had the strong faith with each other, but we also had a concern for people, and I think that's what really drew us to each other, is that we love God's people and we love people, period.

And we just cared about people.

- Right, and she was studying to be in osteopathic doctor?

- When we met, she had just finished her undergrad in psychology, and she was doing a master's now in rehabilitation therapy.

And so it wasn't until maybe about four years later that she ended up going back to medical school.

- [Christine] Okay, wow, that's commitment.

- She finished up, yeah.

- But, so in your intimate conversations, your in depth conversations, and you found that you connected on faith, you also found out that each of you was into journaling.

- [William] Oh, yes.

- Yeah, and when did that start?

Did that start for you at a young age?

- It started for me, as I was giving my life back to Christ, I started journaling.

I was writing poetry a little bit, but then I started as a preacher, I would write different things as God would give me understanding about scripture.

So you write some of those things, and so you write part of your message out.

I was never a preacher that read from a speech.

It was, have the scriptures, and then you would explain the scriptures, but those explanations came out of there.

But then it grew into, as I learned a little bit more into journaling as you're having these conversations with God.

And some of them are very private, very intimate conversation you had, so we ended up with all these journals that we had over the years.

- Did you know that she was also into journaling?

I never had a diary.

I was too busy doing whatever to write it down, but she did keep track of her life.

- Yeah, throughout the years, yeah.

Farther along the line, we did realize Didi had that.

But I didn't realize until after she died that she had a journal from when she was really little.

- Oh - Yeah.

- So you got to see that, a peek into her life long before you met her.

- [William] Sure, sure.

- So you wrote this book.

I got to read it.

- [William] Sorry.

- Now, she passed away some five years ago, 2019?

- Yeah, five years ago.

- And how old was she and what did she die of?

- She was 49 years old, and she died of complications from breast cancer.

And this was the second recurrence of the breast cancer.

And then when it came back, it was very aggressive, yeah.

- So you wrote this book and it says, "Until Death Do Us Part, Finding Each Other."

And we just talked about that you did find one another.

And interestingly, you go into your journals and her journals, and you wrote from those.

Well, this is the first version.

You're gonna write a couple more in your spare time.

So it's interesting because you tell the story, and then you have your Bible spiritual reflections, and your Bible interpretations.

And those definitely came already prepared from your journals over the years or did you look back?

- Some of the biblical reflections are things that I'm having now, but then I do kind of cite myself from things that I've done in the past.

So after, over time, we didn't end up actually dating by that time.

We just kind of hung out for a little bit.

But later on, when we finally got back together, right before that, I kind of had a feeling that she probably was the one.

But whoever I was gonna get married to, I needed to prepare myself.

And so I think a friend of mine gave me this journal, it was about marriage.

And I just went through the journal about marriage.

And so I just wrote different reflections about those particular things about marriage.

And I put some of those in the book.

- But did relate to your relationship with Shana at the time?

Or you were kind of blending, melding things together?

- [William] Yes.

- Okay.

- Yeah, and some of them, they did relate back to it, and it actually helped with our marriage throughout the years.

And that'll be the second, the next book afterward- - After this one, okay, okay, that's good.

All right, so what was the most inspiring thing to you and healing for you to put this in writing and publish it?

- One of the things, the initiative to this inspiration came 'cause I have this box that I call my God box.

And so all my old reflections.

- [Christine] Reflections, entries.

- Yeah, all my journals, all my old Bibles.

- [Christine] How big is this God box?

- It's about that big, and it's multiple boxes now.

- Okay, I love that, yes, okay.

- So it's kind of grew over the years.

So it's old programs from different churches throughout my lifetime when I was in Nashville and everywhere else.

So all that's in there.

And so she put all her stuff in there too, and so that's why it grew even more.

And so one day, when I was coming back and we were just getting back from the funeral, I was putting things back in place, some of the things I had displayed on the funeral, I opened up, I was sitting there where my God box was and it was open to a place in her journal where she cites probably the first time we had a real date.

But it wasn't, it was kinda like we were hanging out as friends, but it was probably more of a date than anything.

So we went out to the movies to see "Jumanji".

And she talks about her conflict about whether or not she should go or not 'cause she was supposed to do something else.

I think she was supposed to sing at a church or whatever.

And she's like, "Well no, I don't wanna do that."

- So was she gonna be punished for that?

'Cause if she was supposed to be in church, I mean, go figure.

- She felt like she was gonna be punished for it, and that's what she writes about, so she had this conflict.

Of course, she don't get punished for that, but that was her conflict about it.

And then at the end of her journal entry, she writes, "Not sure how I feel about Will."

But that was kind of like my initial draw into doing this project is because I was like, "Oh, I didn't know that's how she felt about it."

And so I started reading more into her journals, and some of the old ones that she had and everything.

And I knew I had all my journals, and I started looking where they paralleled each other at.

And there was a few places in there where they did parallel.

- [Christine] Really?

- And so I was like, "It would be great to put this in writing."

So I started typing up my journal entries and then I had some lot of reflections about our past and whatever.

And so I started putting that all together.

I thought I was done at some point.

And then had writing coaches come and say, "Hey, you gotta put this where people can make it more digestible."

And so that's where started putting in chronological order and sorting out all the biblical perspectives.

- I mean, they're great reflections.

- Thank you.

- Because you put your thoughts into words, and you also put those thoughts into a way that other people can also figure it out and just go, "Oh yeah, well that's something to contemplate."

So pretty good inspiration for a physics teacher.

So you were a mechanical engineer, and now you're teaching physics in Mattoon?

- I'm teaching physics in Champagne.

- Excuse me, that's right, Champagne, yeah.

- Yeah, I live in Mattoon.

- Okay, all right, so that's not too bad a commute.

- It's about 50 minutes.

- Okay, well that works, okay.

Anyway, what did you find out about Shana through her journaling that you didn't know about her?

'Cause I mean, after her passing, you really got to know her by what her most intimate thoughts were.

- Well, I learned some details about how she felt about me, and then some of her relationships she had in between us.

- [Christine] Okay.

That didn't count.

(Christine and William laughing) - That didn't count.

But it gave some insight, 'cause after we decided like we were hanging out and she decided, "Well, I really, I need to focus on God and I think you're a little too young for me.

And so, we should end the relationship."

She ended up maybe a few months later dating somebody else that was the same age as me (chuckling).

- That was younger, yeah, exactly.

- But then she talks about that relationship.

So I didn't put a whole lot of that part in there, but what I do talk about is one time where I went out to go visit her in medical school.

This was like fast forward a bit.

- And where was she in medical school again?

- Midwestern University.

- Oh, okay, all right.

- [William] It was a college CCCOM, College of Osteopathic Medicine.

- Okay, in Downers Grove?

- In Downers Grove, yeah.

And I went to go visit her, and I remember vividly this whole scene about visiting her and how it made me feel.

And I realized, I actually had that in my journal.

- Right, and I remember reading that part.

You felt that she was just kind of aloof.

It's like, "Well, it's nice that you came to visit me now.

Go get on with your life, right?"

- Yeah, and she writes about that in her journal, that same instance.

And so that's where they the parallel a bit at.

So I learned a lot about that.

And then there was one journal entry that she had, which is to me is very interesting where she talks about when she was little.

Well, she didn't say little, it was younger.

She was younger and he talks about wanting to get married.

And she said, "Well, I'm gonna get married this many years later or whatever."

- She had it all mapped out.

- All mapped out, and then it didn't happen.

And then the date that she wrote that on was on the date, fast forward, five years after she wrote it, it was the day we got married.

- And did she remember that?

I mean, is that why she picked the date?

Or how did you pick the date?

- We never had that discussion.

- Okay, interesting.

- I just found that in her journal.

And so the date came about just because we were like, "Well, all the decorations will still be up from Christmas.

We'll use some of those."

- Go for it, yeah, exactly.

- Yeah, let's just do that.

We kind of decided to get married right after I graduated from college in May.

And then we kind of progressed.

It took us six months to plan our marriage.

- [Christine] To get it all planned out.

- That's a pretty quick turnaround.

- That was a very quick turnaround.

Did anything really surprise you from some of her journal entries that you didn't expect that just came out of the clear blue?

- It was some of those things, and then just some of her relationships with some other people.

But I think I knew her well enough that nothing really surprised me too much.

But it was to me, what surprised me was the parallels between them.

But as far as her personality was concerned, that's what really drew us together because we had spent almost five years kind of knowing each other as friends, kind of feel like we wanted to date, not fully doing it.

And then coming to the point where we decided we wanted to date, but we had known each other as friends very well.

And so she would always say, "You're my best friend."

- [Christine] That's a good foundation.

- I think so too.

I think some people don't believe it to be so, but I think as friends though, that's what you need because at the end of the day, that's what you're gonna have for the rest of your life.

- Exactly.

- It's not gonna always be this feeling of romance, this quivering in your stomach.

- You were kind of short changed Yeah, yeah, exactly.

You were a little bit shortchanged though by her diagnosis and her death.

But you managed to still find one another, keep your marriage together, have three beautiful children, one of them is Micah, and instill faith in them as well.

So what are you doing with your Christianity now?

And now that she's gone, have you fallen away?

Are you still very practicing?

- I think my faith is a lot stronger now than it has been in the past.

- [Christine] And why is that?

- It's because I remember getting the second diagnosis and talking to God, and I was like, "Lord, I don't want my wife to die."

But then Him challenging me said, "You know the scripture that talks about, love your wife as Christ loved the church"?

Everybody talks about husband as the head of the wife and never gets to the next part of it.

- Well, and then that obey part, I'm not a big fan of that, just personally, but okay.

- But the part after that, He talks about, "Husband love your wife as Christ loved the church, even so much so that He gave his life for it to present it to Himself."

To me, so He challenged me with that after we got the diagnosis, like, "So what are you gonna do now?

Are you gonna trust me or not?"

And so, my faith was built up enough throughout the years in walking with the Lord.

And I'm like, "I gotta trust You.

It's either that or I'll fall away."

And I decided.

- [Christine] And it's all in His time.

- Yes.

- And you found that out.

- You always ask the question why, right?

And you never really get a full answer, but you just trust Him.

That's the part of my walk that I really got to really understand.

And even with her passing, she passed in 2019, October 9th, 2019.

And so right after that, we had the pandemic.

And we got let outta school on her birthday, March 16th, 2020.

So that was a major impact for me.

However, it gave me a great perspective even about the pandemic 'cause everybody's like, "Well, let's get out the pandemic.

I wanna go back to church, everything else."

And I'm like, "Church is in your heart."

- [Christine] Yeah, it's not in the building.

- It's not in this building.

And the Word is there.

Are you really gonna trust Him?

And so having that experience and being able to, like now, we're shutting down, so all we doing is sending papers back and forth for kids to do some work at home.

And so I had a lot of time to go through a lot of stuff.

- [Christine] And you put this together.

- To do exactly a lot of this work.

- Well, I think your son just told me that we're just about out time.

- Oh, okay.

- How can that possibly be?

Well, thanks so much.

- Oh, you're welcome.

- And all the best to you.

- Thank you.

- And I look forward to reading the next chapters of your life.

- Thank you, I appreciate it.

- Okay.

And thank you all for being here with us, and being inspired by this man's strong faith.

And in the meantime, stay well.

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