The cover of “When Heaven Took Her Hand” by Jimmy Williams with a painting of his late daughter, Karley Sue Williams, by Ben Gutberlet, a Marietta artist. (Photo provided)

A Woodsfield man who overcame the grief from the death of his daughter has written a book he hopes will help other parents who have lost a child.

“When Heaven Took Her Hand,” by Jimmy Williams, is the story of Karley Sue Willams, who was 15 years 11 months old when she died, and how several scriptures in the Bible helped him overcome the unimaginable grief of losing a child.

“It’s hard to write about a lost child,” he said.

Karley Sue had carnitine palmitoyltransferase II deficiency (CPT2), a rare genetic disorder that prevents the body from metabolizing fat, which eventually damaged her heart. Karley Sue’s twin was dead in the womb, Williams said.

Williams said that he or her mother, Becki, was with Karley Sue most every day before she passed.

Karley Sue Williams’ favorite photograph of herself. She died in 2021 just before her 16th birthday and is the subject of her father’s book on overcoming grief, “When Heaven Took Her Hand.” (Photo provided)

“All I wanted to do was live and help her live and enjoy life,” he said. “When that came to an end, I was caught up in a bunch of grief.”

“When Heaven Took Her Hand” is Williams’ story about overcoming grief through Bible scriptures and knowing that Karley Sue was in Heaven without pain, doing what makes her happy and not waiting for others to join her.

“It’s beautiful there,” Williams said.

Karley Sue passed away in September 2021.

“When Heaven Took Her Hand” is for “anyone suffering, anyone afraid, anyone who cannot imagine a way forward,” Williams said.

Williams

Losing a child affects the entire family, he said. He and his wife separated, but remain friends, Williams said.

Some let grief overpower them, becoming hermits from their friends, family and life, he said.

“That’s not the way God wants us to live life,” Williams said.

For Williams, it was a morning three months after Karley Sue had passed. Williams, late for work, said he walked into a dark room where his arm knocked a Bible from the dresser. He turned the light on and saw the Bible was open to 2 Peter 3:8: “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.”

This was the message, that time on earth is not the time in Heaven, that years and decades here are only minutes in Heaven, he said.

“It was sitting right there. I was looking right at it,” he said.

Karley Sue will not be alone with long stretches of silence or separation, but in the beauty of Heaven in her perfected body, “and by the time she turns around, someone she loves will be right behind her,” he said.

Also of comfort was the 23rd Psalm that says “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,” he said. The verse shows that a person cannot avoid or go around the grief, but to meet it and go through it to the other side, Williams said.

“The shadow of death for me was Karley Sue’s death and I feared the evil that comes out of that darkness, the depression and the grief,” he said. “When someone stays in a room in isolation of others, evil wins. You have to pass through the darkness to get back into the light.”

“When Heaven Took Her Hand” is 12 chapters of 39 pages, purposely kept short to focus on Karley Sue’s story and how others can overcome the grief of losing a child, he said. It is available at amazon.com/author/jimmywilliamsbooks1969.

The cost is $3.99 for the Kindle version, free for Kindle Unlimited members, and $6.99 for a paperback, the least that can be charged, he said. The purpose was not to make money, but help others, Williams said.

He also plans to leave printed versions of the book at the Watters and the Bauer Turner funeral homes in Woodsfield that can be given to grieving families and parents with the hope it helps them, too, Williams said.

“When Heaven Took Her Hand” is his first book.

Williams was in the music business and had a song that became successful, “Holdin’ a Good Hand” in 1990, which was recorded by Lee Greenwood. Now in the oil and gas business, Williams has written numerous word search and crossword puzzles for publications. He is writing another ebook, “The Little House at the Edge of the Big Woods,” a fictional spiritual mystery series of five books.

Williams is among the characters along with Karley Sue and other friends who have passed away. Karley Sue is the main character in the book, which will be published soon, who shows others to the light.