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A mom's dying wish: Pictures for her family

Rebecca 'Becky' Williams died Aug. 28, 2019 from breast cancer and surprised her family with photos she took three years ago.

MAGNOLIA, Texas — You’d never know just by looking at these pictures, this is the last time Rebecca "Becky" Williams would feel normal.

“Becky found me on Facebook,” said Kaci Okabayashi, with Southern Envy Studios in The Woodlands.

The photographer first met Becky in 2015. She was a breast cancer patient who needed someone to do her hair and makeup for a hospital commercial.

“I’m just speechless," said Becky in a cell phone video Okabayashi saved from their first meeting. “She was so thrilled, and she felt so beautiful and so normal."

A year later, Becky called again. This time, she knew she wouldn’t make it. She asked Okabayashi to take these pictures to give to her family after her death.

“I got to live it, and I got to feel it, and I got to be a part of it but I got to walk away from it and that’s a gift, because she didn’t get to walk away from it,” Okabayashi said.

There was a moment, though, she’ll never forget. A moment during the photo shoot when Becky wandered on to a hill top.

“It was like the closest to god that I had ever been,” Okabayashi said.

As she cried and prayed, the heavens opened and rain came down.

“I witnessed like a peaceful cleansing like it’s ok I’m here,” Okabayashi said.

Becky died on Aug. 28, 2019, a week before her 50th birthday and just as she wished, this photographer delivered the photos.

Roger Williams, her husband of 25 years, couldn’t believe it.

“Continuing to give gifts, that’s who she was, that’s Becky,” Williams said.

As the her husband and daughter sat down to hear the whole story, they couldn’t help but smile at mom’s plan.

“It really amazed me that she wanted us to remember her before she got really sick verses how she was before she left,” said Ryle Williams, her daughter.

There’s one picture Roger kept coming back to that one on the hilltop with Becky’s hands lifted in the rain.

“Her favorite song was bring the rain by Mercy Me that was kind of her theme song," he said.

The picture of her in the rain is now a priceless gift for this family.

“Her motto was bring the rain, God’s got it,” Williams said.

A reminder that a mother’s love is stronger than any storm.

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