The children at the elementary school next door can be heard, easily, from Leighton Ford\u2019s backyard.<\/p>\n
Read more Vote for The Observer\u2019s boys\u2019 high school athlete of the week (May 22, 2026)<\/a><\/p>\n Their squeals of delight rise over the brick wall on a cool May morning in the SouthPark area of Charlotte, drifting across a newly laid bark-nugget path and through the branches of a sprawling Japanese maple tree.<\/p>\n Somewhere nearby, a leaf blower hums. Birds chatter overhead.<\/p>\n In the middle of it all sits Ford \u2014 the 94-year-old evangelist, author and mentor to younger Christian leaders \u2014 beneath the tree, a walking stick resting nearby as he quietly surveys the small garden he created for his late wife.<\/p>\n Not long ago, this corner of his property was empty, mostly dirt and patchy grass, a space nobody used very much. But after his wife Jean<\/a> died from a stroke in February 2024, and two cancer diagnoses of his own in the months that followed, Ford began imagining something different in that spot.<\/p>\n A place for reflection.<\/p>\n A place for prayer.<\/p>\n A place to sit quietly and think.<\/p>\n A few days earlier, five teenage boys and several fathers from a church group spent hours hauling in more than two tons of stone and bags of mulch to help finish the space. The fresh path now curves gently through the shaded backyard. A small birdbath sits near flowering plants. The sounds of the playing children give the space an unexpected buoyancy.<\/p>\n He calls it \u201cJeanie\u2019s Place,\u201d and he smiles when he says the name.<\/p>\n Because while the garden exists as a result of grief, it does not feel grief-stricken. It feels alive<\/i>.<\/p>\n Ford laughs frequently throughout the morning. He constantly asks questions of his guests. He jokes with his children, Kevin and Debbie, who sit nearby. Then, mid-conversation, a woodpecker lands high in a nearby tree and knocks loudly enough to interrupt him, prompting Ford to smile again.<\/p>\n \u201cAll right, God,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019ll take that as a manifestation today that you\u2019re here.\u201d<\/p>\n Even now, in the middle of uncertainty, he seems intensely engaged with the world around him.<\/p>\n The longtime Charlotte minister and author is widely known both for his own ministry work and for his close relationship with Jean\u2019s older brother, evangelist Billy Graham<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Fords married in 1953 and left Charlotte for England two years later to work with Graham\u2019s ministry, beginning a partnership and life together that would last seven decades. Over time, Leighton became an influential evangelical leader in his own right \u2014 preaching internationally and eventually founding Leighton Ford Ministries<\/a> in Charlotte.<\/p>\n But sitting in his backyard on this morning, Ford shows little interest in recounting the milestones of his career.<\/p>\n Instead, he keeps returning to another subject entirely: attentiveness.<\/p>\n To paying attention to people. To learning how to receive help. To resisting the temptation to move too quickly through life, and instead slowing down enough to notice bluebirds.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the mistake is feeling, I have to stay busy, busy, busy<\/i>,\u201d Ford says. \u201cI think that\u2019s all<\/i> of our mistakes (is not) finding the time to stop and look \u2026 and see what\u2019s there.\u201d<\/p>\n Ford is currently undergoing immunotherapy treatment for anaplastic thyroid cancer, one of the deadliest forms of the disease; five years ago, the diagnosis often carried only months-long survival expectations. But Ford\u2019s doctors are using a newer treatment approach \u2014 tied to research out of MD Anderson Cancer Center and administered through doctors connected to UNC Health \u2014 that has seen success, with some patients who are currently cancer free after more than two years.<\/p>\n And while fatigue associated with his medicine can at times overwhelm him, \u201cThis morning,\u201d he says, early in the conversation, \u201cI\u2019m doing fine.\u201d<\/p>\n For Ford, though, the physical realities of aging and illness seem intertwined with learning how to inhabit a life that no longer includes the person who shared it with him for more than 70 years.<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t get over that, obviously,\u201d he says. \u201cYou never<\/i> get over that.\u201d<\/p>\n Early on, before Ford carved out \u201cJeanie\u2019s Place,\u201d he had a spot in the back of the backyard that he came to consider his \u201cWailing Wall.\u201d<\/p>\n Read more Vote for The Observer\u2019s girls\u2019 high school athlete of the week (May 22, 2026)<\/a><\/p>\n Many times, he\u2019d come home to an empty house, or he\u2019d miss her terribly on a Saturday night, and find himself out there by himself letting the emotions pour out of him.<\/p>\n He also started doing for her what he did for their 21-year-old son Sandy after he died in 1981 during open-heart surgery. He wrote down memories that would eventually turn into a book, \u201cas a way of dealing with my grief,\u201d he says, \u201cand also sharing her with others.\u201d<\/p>\n Then came the diagnoses themselves \u2014 bladder cancer discovered just six weeks after her death, thyroid cancer last year. The illnesses sharpened something he had already been slowly learning as he moved deeper into his 90s: He could dwell on the past and fret about the future, or try to live as fully as possible in the present.<\/p>\n So Leighton began hosting Saturday-night dinner parties to help take his mind off how much he misses Jean.<\/p>\n And in general, he started inviting a variety of people to come over regularly. Ford says he has learned to prioritize remaining deeply connected to other people while also trying not to deny the realities of aging.<\/p>\n \u201cI have to be realistic about it,\u201d he says. \u201cI might live a year, I might live five years. I don\u2019t know. I hope it\u2019s longer and fuller. But I told someone the other day, it\u2019s like when we went on a family vacation, for a week, in the mountains. We loved it, and by the time Friday comes, you\u2019re saying, \u2018Oh, our vacation is almost over.\u2019 I mean, I was literally thinking about this last week:<\/p>\n \u201cThen \u2026 well, let\u2019s just pretend we still have a great weekend (left to spend) together.<\/i>\u201d<\/p>\n When his dad finishes that statement, Kevin recalls a conversation the family was having at his house last Thanksgiving:<\/p>\n They were sitting on the couch, talking about his now-100-year-old father-in-law, and his wife said she thought he was ready to be reunited in heaven with his late wife. At that, Debbie\u2019s daughter Christine turned to her grandfather, Leighton, and asked: \u201cAre you<\/i> ready?\u201d To which Leighton Ford responded, \u201cNo, I\u2019m not. I still have a sense of purpose and mission.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll never forget that,\u201d Kevin says.<\/p>\n And that sense of mission is still shaping his dad\u2019s days.<\/p>\n In addition to continuing to mentor younger leaders around the world through the ministry his son Kevin now leads, late last year, Leighton Ford published his short book about his wife titled \u201cLike a Gentle River<\/a>: The Life and Witness of Jean Ford.\u201d He is now working on a few other writing projects, including a book of poetry and a collection of stories about his life for his grandchildren.<\/p>\n Also, the world still seems to interest him. Deeply.<\/p>\n He also speaks openly about discouragement over political division, distrust, isolation and the broader anxieties shaping American life. But he still feels hopeful.<\/p>\n \u201cVery much \u2014 though with great difficulty,\u201d Ford says. \u201cBecause we see all the signs of what\u2019s happening, and especially in this country, that are so discouraging, politically and otherwise.\u201d<\/p>\n He goes silent for several seconds, as the wind kicks up and a hanging chime in the garden tinkles loudly.<\/p>\n Then he continues: \u201cJust in my own life, I\u2019ve been at points of discouragement and where I was ready to quit, and not only physically, but emotionally, spiritually. Almost every time, not always easily, I have been able, for God\u2019s grace, to come through them and try to be a whole person. So I feel that my own life. …<\/p>\n \u201cBut a friend of mine once said … \u2018When the light seems to go, you don\u2019t chase the light. Sometimes you have to go into the darkness in order to come through.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The chiming continues. Children can be heard squealing again in the schoolyard.<\/p>\n Not long ago, this place was empty.<\/p>\n Now it has become something else entirely: a space shaped by grief, uncertainty, beauty and hope all at once.<\/p>\n \u201cI think, sometimes, there are empty places in our hearts and our lives that we ignore,\u201d Ford says, \u201cthat God wants to fill in various ways. So I feel that.<\/p>\n