THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, August 12, 1995 TAG: 9508120039
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE ADDIS AND CHARLISE LYLES, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: Long : 110 lines
Jonah Lee Gassaway's many families said goodbye to him Friday, sooner than any of them wanted to, at a hot, crowded little church in Portsmouth.
He was a 15-year-old with an easy manner and a broad smile that made teachers, coaches and friends want to claim him as their own.
``For some reason,'' said his mother, Margaret G. Williams, ``he just got close to everybody he came in contact with.''
``He just had that magic touch,'' said Bob Mackey, one of the men to whom Jonah was a son.
Jonah was so much a member of the Mackey family that they invited him along on vacation. The promising Chesapeake athlete, a rising sophomore at Oscar Smith High School, drowned last week in upstate New York, where the Mackey clan had gathered from distant towns for a family reunion.
Jonah and his friend, 15-year-old Daniel Mackey, were swimming in a lake when Jonah tired, then panicked, then slipped beneath the surface. Daniel tried twice to save him, but couldn't. They were just 20 feet from shore.
Jonah lived in South Norfolk with his mother; his stepfather, Edward A. Williams; and three brothers and a sister. Over the last couple of years he also had become close to the Mackeys, who live in the Timberlake section of Virginia Beach.
The young black kid from a tougher side of Chesapeake and the middle-class white family from the Virginia Beach suburbs were an easy fit, Bob Mackey said.
``I was born and raised in the Bronx, raised to believe that color didn't matter. Race has never been a barrier to us or our children or their friendships. Having Jonah around was just a natural thing.''
``He fitted into the Mackey family,'' Jonah's mother said. ``Believe it or not, he fitted into a lot of people's families. That's the way he was.''
She bears no ill will for the tragedy.
``If I could've seen this happening,'' Margaret Williams said, ``if I'd had a gut feeling . . . But I just didn't have it. It was something that the Lord saw and nobody else saw.
``I trusted them completely,'' she said of the Mackey family. ``They took to him and he took to them, and I thank them for that. I've never seen a coach put his heart out for Jonah the way Coach Mackey did.
``I don't have any bitterness toward him. I want him to know that I don't blame him. I don't want him to think that. It's the Lord's will.''
Friday morning, before the funeral, Margaret Williams and her children watched a home video that Jonah had made on the trip, just days before he died. He narrated a bike ride through the rural New York hills: ``Look at them cows,'' he said, laughing. ``That's food on wheels.'' Mom and the kids giggled.
The two families became intertwined four years ago, when Bob Mackey was helping coach Daniel's team in the Boo Williams AAU Basketball league. Somebody brought Jonah to a practice, and he joined the team. ``He didn't have transportation,'' said Mackey, who owns a video-rental store in Portsmouth, ``so we'd pick him up and take him home. It got so we'd have practice Friday night, then games Saturdays and Sundays, so he'd just stay with us.
``Sometimes he'd just show up, there'd be a knock at the door and there was Jonah, and he'd say, `Hey, Coach, can I stay?' And I'd say, `Sure, just call your mom, tell her you're here.'
``He'd joke us, like any of our kids, but he was so respectful, always so polite. This was one good kid, a real sweetheart of a kid, and I'm telling you this is hard, this is just like losing one of my own sons.''
The loss has been difficult for Daniel Mackey as well. ``He's hurting,'' Bob Mackey said of his son. ``It's like a video recorder in his head, playing back that last few seconds, and he can't shake it. It will take him a while to heal.''
At Jonah's funeral service, one speaker said, ``Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.'' From their expressions of grief Friday, Jonah's friends will find that difficult to understand for a while.
Teammates talked of his importance on the courts and playing fields. He was a standout at track and football, was named the best athlete at Truitt Middle School, and made the junior varsity basketball squad as a 6-foot-3 ninth-grader.
``He had all the potential in the world,'' said Kerry Harper, Jonah's middle-school football coach. ``If he kept his grades up and stayed on the right track, he could have written his own ticket to any school in the country. This kid was as good an athlete I've ever seen.''
``He was always saying he was going to be the next Michael Jordan,'' his mother said. ``He would say, `Mama, I'm going to go to make money. I'm going to go to college. I'm going to have a big old house and I'm going to have someone to clean it. I'm going to buy a brand new house for you and a car. And I'm going to buy a brand new truck for dad.' He had all these dreams.''
Beyond sports, though, what the people from all of Jonah Gassaway's families mentioned was his smile. When asked about him, it was always the first thing they'd mention.
Friday, during a eulogy, when a friend mentioned Jonah's big, friendly grin, a collective sob went through the crowd packed into Calvary Evangelical Baptist Church.
It was as if, at that moment, they realized what they loved best about Jonah Lee Gassaway, and that they'd never see that smile again. MEMO: Donations to offset funeral expenses, and for a permanent memorial,
can be sent to the Jonah Gassaway Fund, c/o Fitchett Funeral Home, 1821
E. Liberty St., Chesapeake, Va.
Staff writer Julie Goodrich contributed to this story.
ILLUSTRATION: Daniel Mackey, 15, embraces his mother, Cindy, Friday at Jonah
Lee Gassaway's funeral. Daniel was with Jonah when he drowned.
TAMARA VONINSKI/Staff
Friends and family attend the funeral of Jonah Lee Gassaway, a boy
who ``just got close to everybody he came in contact with.''
J.L. Gassaway
by CNB