[Times photo: James Borchuck]
While her father desperately tried to get to the track, Lauryn Williams, second from left, easily advanced to today's 100-meter finals.
ATHENS - Turns out, Lauryn Williams is faster than a locomotive. Another time, her father might take comfort in that.
At the moment, David Williams was busy being angry. His train was chugging through the streets of Athens, past the old, close houses of a different culture. So what? Williams wasn't here to sightsee. He was here to see his daughter run.
Twenty minutes to go.
Six stops remaining.
He wasn't going to make it.
Sometimes, the strangest thoughts pop into your head. A killing disease was coursing through Williams' body. His job, and most of his money, were claimed by his leukemia long ago. There had been a 16-hour flight, a language barrier and a scramble for medical treatment. None of that was what was keeping him from seeing his daughter.
It was, he said, his ex-wife's fault. "I ain't waiting for anyone anymore."
Donna, the ex-wife, said it was his fault. "You were in the wrong spot."
Regardless, his daughter was stepping into the starting blocks, and he was still on this infernal train. Lauryn had a fast start, an easy stride and no challengers as she won her first heat. David Williams looked out the window as a reporter gave him play-by-play on his cell phone.
"I come all this way to see my daughter run," he said, "and I can't see her run."
Then Williams sat back and thought about the miracle that has brought a father and his daughter across an ocean.
* * *
Lauryn Williams didn't want her father to come.
She worries about him. For most of her life, Williams has watched her father's struggle against leukemia. She was 6 when he was told he had three years to live. She has seen his body in agony. She has seen him bedridden. She worried the trip might be too much for him.
There were the expenses. There were the medical concerns. There were the logistics. There was the fatigue.
Despite it all, he is here.
Yes, he is healthy enough to celebrate.
David Williams sits at McDonald's, across from Donna and three of his seven children. He looks puffy. He is tired. His arm hurts. He has not had a dialysis since Monday, and he knows if doesn't get it soon, he is going to be ill.
He extends his left arm, showing a large, raised scar on his forearm that looks like an 8-inch leech. There are large holes, the size of freckles, in the scar from the two large needles - "the size of your pen," he said - that are inserted two times a week for 41/2 hours at a time.
Williams needs dialysis because, as a result of strong medicine for his leukemia, his kidneys failed.
"My experience getting treatment hasn't been very good so far," he said. "I got here on Wednesday, and I still haven't been able to get treatment. I got eight needles one day. They're not able to get it working properly. They don't know what they're doing. I go to dialysis every other day (back home), and I don't have any problems.
"But this isn't about me. This is about Lauryn. I'm going to be positive. I'm not going to get sick. I'm going to have fun."
For a while, it didn't appear Williams was going to make it across the ocean. Once he was a district manager for General Motors. But that was before he got sick, before the money went down the holes in his arm, before he was unable to find a job.
When Lauryn, 20, made the Olympic team in the 100 meters, David Williams was prepared to watch her from his living room. Oh, the family tried fundraisers, but they weren't sufficient.
For instance, there was the Classic Car Show in Rochester, Pa. The Williamses showed up early, selling autographs and T-shirts, asking for donations. They stayed late.
The result?
Fifty-four dollars.
The family kept trying. Williams, a minister at the Greater Faith Worship Center, an apostolic church, remembers giving a sermon three weeks ago that suggested if God wanted him to be here, a way would be provided.
The next day, a businessman named Tim Wiebe called. Would $10,000 be enough?
Williams, 51, laughs easily and smiles often. Ask him about his daughter, however, about how he feels when he watches her run, and he gets a faraway look.
"I would liken it to a person dropping out of an airplane," he said, the lilt still in his accent though he left his native Tobago long ago. "I don't think anyone knows the feeling of hanging in the skies, nothing encumbering you, you're just free. That's how I feel when I see Lauryn run.
"I see a free spirit. I see God's grace. I see blessings. I see a person who is just wonderful. The spirit flows in the wind, and Lauryn runs like the wind. Sometimes I see her and I think "Why me? Of all the men in the world, why did I get such a wonderful child?"'
Given the expulsion of Torri Edwards, given the failure to qualify of Marion Jones, given the age of Gail Devers, Lauryn Williams could be America's best hope in today's 100 final. A senior at Miami, Williams has posted the third-fastest time (10.97 seconds) in the world this year.
Williams also has gotten used to her father's arrival.
"Just to get my dad over here and have him watch me means a lot," Williams said. "He's been through a lot. I only hope he's safe."
She is her father's daughter, the same bubbles in her personality, the same smile. All you need to know about Lauryn is this: In high school, she was elected both class president and class clown.
"Lauryn has always been my reason for living," David Williams said. "She's my joy. I wanted her. I wanted her bad. There's a story that goes along with that, but we won't tell it right now. But I had to negotiate to get her. She didn't just come."
Across the table, Donna picks up a water bottle and cocks it as if she is going to throw it at her ex-husband. Then she laughs along with him.
They are an odd pair, David and Donna. They have been divorced 16 years, and he has remarried, but they are together here to see their daughter. They tend to bicker, then to laugh about it.
"Sometimes, it's easier to be friends when you don't live together," Donna said. Also, when you have a daughter such as Lauryn.
Donna tells the story of the running of the dogs, about how she was home one day when the neighborhood kids came and urged her to come outside and watch. There, Lauryn was running sprints against her German shepherd, Ben. Eventually, the dog got tired and stopped.
David tells the story of giving Lauryn $20 to buy candy, and how he's never had to give her a dime since; she took the candy and sold it for an enormous profit. Maybe that explains why, after three years, she is one semester from a degree in finance.
Both of them will tell you if you watch, you will see their daughter win a gold medal.
"I wouldn't miss this, no matter how sick I was," David said. "And this time, I have the tickets. If anyone is late, I'm going without them."
* * *
Same day. Same situation. Same frustration.
David came to Greece to be at the track, not on them. Yet Friday night, he was on a train, watching the same houses as his daughter raced again. He had to listen to a reporter give him the play-by-play over his cell phone, again.
It had gotten to be an Out-of-Towners skit. This time, David was running late because, finally, he had found a place to provide his dialysis. He planned to be finished in time for an 8:50 race. The problem was, he later found out, Lauryn ran at 8:05.
"God doesn't want me to see my daughter run," he said.
Tonight, David gets his last chance. In the 100 final.
[Times photo: James Borchuck]