My Uncles, Aunts, and cousins and I all woke up to terrible news on January 1, 2007. #27, Darrent Williams, the starting cornerback for the Broncos was shot and killed that morning around 2:30. We all watched the news trying to figure out how this happened and why? My cousins and I were all hurt. I thought that this was a joke. But this is something you dont joke about. So we all wanted to do something. Our thought was to build a snowman. Not a normal snow man, but a 12 foot snowman. We all got our boots and gloves on and some regular close because we knew this was gonna take all day to make. We went to my cousin Devins house and started rolling the first ball of snow. after about 2 or 3 hours, we had the first ball done. The first ball is about 5'5" tall and about the same wide. That was not the hard part tho. While me and my cousins Brandon and Devin and there dads were rolling the first ball, my other cousins Tasha and Jennah started on the second. This ball wasnt as big as the first, but maybe just a few inches smaller. Now the question was,"how are we gonna get this on top of the first?". My uncle Corey had a four wheeler ramp and a ladder laying on the first snow ball so we could just roll the second on. Yeah, it didnt work out as smooth as we thought. The Ladder broke in half with the weight of the ball. So we moved the ladder and now we had to push the ball up the four wheeler ramp. We had some what of a running start at the ramp. We pushed maybe a foot up the ladder, and then we almost lost it. Mind you, we had 9 people trying to get this up. Now all of us are under this ball and if it falls, we are all dead or seriously injured. So we had to think of something fast. My aunt Connie ran to the garage and got 3 long pieces of 2x4's. We stuck them in the ramp and used leverage to lift the ball. This made it alittle bit easier, but not much. after about 30 minutes of pushing this ball up, we were finally just about a half a foot away from the top. Were all yelling and sweating trying to get this up. But as we started pushing again, the ball started leaning to the right. I moved my cousin Jenna so she wouldnt be crushed and i pushed the ball so it wouldnt fall. A few more pushes and the ball cleared the ramp and started rolling off the other side. We all knew it was going off the other side, but God was with us that day and some how the ball just stopped. And when it did, we all dropped to the ground. Out of energy, strength, and soaking wet, we all layed there. No one said a word. After about 5 minutes we got up and hugged each other. But the second ball was not right. It was leaning to the back too much. So we started packing the front with snow to make it look right. We got it to where it looked good but not perfect. We had no energy. And the bad thing was that the sun was about to set. We made another ball for the head really quick and just handed it to my Uncle Chris who was on the ramp so he could put it on the top. When he put it on the top, we started putting snow up there to make it bigger and rounder. After about 2 hours after we got the second ball on, the snow man was done. After that, we put in arms, a scarf, buttons, and a trash can for its hat. We also got black spray paint and painted a face and #27 on its chest in memory of Darrent Williams. We wanted to paint it with his jersey and make it look like a real player. But it was almost to dark to see and we wanted to get pictures of all of us with it. After we were all done, the snowman measured out to be 11'6" tall! Even though a snowman doesnt bring back Darrent Williams, its the thought and care we had for him. We worked all day on this. We could have been in our houses staying warm and drinking hot cocoa, but we were out in the snow trying to show our care for Darrent Williams. Darrent Williams was an amazing player, and an amazing person! Only 24 years old, his career, family, and his life was taken away from him. I just wanted everyone to know how much we cared for him.
From all who contributed some way in the snowman:
We Miss you Darrent!
R.I.P. Darrent Williams! 1982-2007.