A woman who recently drowned with two friends when their car veered off the road and into the Passaic River in Newark was a “beacon” of hope for people recovering from drug and alcohol abuse, the woman’s life partner told The Post.
Gail Williams, 43, who spent 20 years addicted to cocaine and heroin, leading to several jail stints, miraculously turned her life around in 1998 when she came out of Springhouse of Bergen County, a woman’s rehabilitation facility.
“They gave her a chance to live again,” said Leah Wilson, 38, Williams’s life partner. “We fall down, but we get back up. Don’t ever think that you’re too far down to pick yourself back up. She hit her bottom. She got back up.”
After working with a company as an accounts payable representative for three years, Williams was fired for lying about her criminal record.
She looked for work for a year, and in 2003 finally landed a job with Catholic charities, working at St. Lucy’s Homeless Shelter in Newark.
Williams also maintained three other jobs and was taking classes to become a Certified Drug and Alcohol Counselor.
“Me and Gail didn’t have any children,” said Wilson. But the couple considered themselves parents to a group of choir children ages 3 to 15.
“Her death is going to bring life to other people,” said Wilson. “She is that beacon in the sky for those people in life who are having a hard time.”
Williams was the driver of a Jeep Cherokee that jumped a curb on Raymond Boulevard the morning of Oct. 24 as she returned from a party with friends Monique Hawkins and Nicole Floyd. They all drowned as a good Samaritan tried to break windows to save them.