Willie Thomas, 44, remembers the day his life began to shift.
It was on a Sunday 30 years ago inside the World Restoration Center nondenominational church in St. Elmo, he said. His father, Eddie J. Thomas Sr., was delivering a sermon. As pastor Thomas read from the Old Testament, the congregation began to stir. He read Exodus chapter 11. Then, he read chapter 12. Then, chapter 13.
By the time he got to chapter 14 — without pausing or offering commentary — his wife, Cindy, rose from a pew and announced: “Something’s wrong.”
Indeed, the family would later learn their patriarch, whom people affectionately called the “gentle giant,” was having a stroke — a pattern that would repeat for the next several years.
“He was very lethargic,” Willie Thomas, who was 14 at the time, remembers of that day at the church. “We realized something had happened. It was like he was stuck in a cycle. The next day we discovered he had had a stroke. … He didn’t recognize my mom or us kids.”