by Dana Canedy
To Tony Jenkins, Charles could not have had a better battle buddy. Thank you for being there for him, and now for Jordan and me. Charles also could not have chosen a better battle buddy for me than he did in Donna Morris. You have been my rock, Donna, both when our men were in Iraq and since we lost Charles. Thank you for putting me in touch with so many Dealers to research this book and for letting me call on you and Kenny so often in the crafting of it. Your giving spirit is one of the reasons Charles loved you, as do I.
To Valerie Lauer, with whom I share an unspoken bond, both having lost the men we loved that dreadful October day, thank you for reaching out to me in so many ways, and for sharing your memories with me. And to William Record and the family of Joseph Kane, I never had the honor of meeting you, but I share in your pain and am sorry for your suffering. Know that I continue to pray for you.
To all of the men and women of the United States Armed Forces, I thank you for your service and your sacrifices. You inspire me. Godspeed to you and your families.
To Mr. Charlie King and Mrs. Gladys King, your son would not have been the amazing man he was without you as his parents. I thank you for his life, and I want you to know that I will love him for the rest of mine. To Christina, thank you for sharing your daddy with me, and for being such a loving “sissy” to Jordan. We love you dearly. To Gail, for all that you meant to your brother.
To my father, Thomas J. Canedy Sr., and to my mother, Penny Canedy, thank you for your enduring love and for supporting me every step of the way in writing this book. For as long as I can remember, you have encouraged me to write, even when I was a young girl penning poems about autumn leaves.
To my devoted brothers and sisters: David, Lynnette, Thomas Jr., Kim, Nikki, Vanessa, and Derrick, you are my best friends and I love you with all of my heart To my precious nieces and nephews: Michael, Mariah, Aaliyah, Imani, Kayla, Brianna, Alana, Cameron, Collin, Brian, and Dominic, Aunt Dana adores you.
To Grandma Everlener Canedy and Aunt Bobbie Williams, you are always in my heart.
To Rachel Klayman, my editor at Crown, words fail me in describing your extraordinary talent. I am in awe of how much your deft editing improved my manuscript, and of how passionately you cared about my story. I have often told you that, second only to giving birth to Jordan, this is the most important endeavor of my life. I would not have wanted to undertake it with anyone else. You laughed with me, cried with me, and counseled me as we made it through the emotionally wrenching chapters. I thank you for all that you did to make the story come to life, and I know that Charles does, too.
I am so grateful that my book landed at Crown. It found a home there that is warm and safe and nurturing. To Jenny Frost, thank you for giving me the time, the space, and the support to tell my story. To Tina Constable, who is an author’s publisher, that is to say supportive in every conceivable way, I have grown to respect you for so many things, especially your boundless enthusiasm. To Philip Patrick, you did me the great honor of making me feel as though this project was personal to you. To Tara Gilbride, Cindy Berman, and Mary Choteborsky, for your amazing talent and support, and to Mary Anne Stewart, for your sensitivity and incredibly thorough copyediting. Thanks to everyone else at Crown who helped make this book a reality.
To my agent, Flip Brophy, my biggest cheerleader for this book, your professionalism and your wit are matched only by your enormous heart. You were with me all along, especially when the pain of losing Charles was so overwhelming. I remember standing on a street corner crying my eyes out one day, and how you were there beside me with outstretched arms to ease my pain. That was not in your job description but says so much about who you are. Thank you.
To Sharon Skettini, Flip’s assistant, you are a talented young woman who I have no doubtwill someday be running the place. To everyone else at Sterling Lord Literistic, you are the best team in the business. Thanks to you all for your unwavering enthusiasm.
To Rebecca Corbett, my “official reader,” colleague, and friend, I thank you so very much for guiding me through the writing of this book, for reading each draft of every chapter, and lending me your considerable skills and wisdom as I sat down to what was initially just an idea and a blank computer screen. I might still be staring at an empty page if not for you.
To Miriam Hill, my oldest friend, can you believe it’s been more than twenty years? Here’s to many more decades of girl talk, laughter, and love. Thank you for being by my side when Jordan was born and for encouraging me to write this book.
To my sistah soul mates: Rachel Swarns, Robin Stone, Katti Gray, and Cynthia Curry, we are family, you know that. Thanks for reading early drafts of some chapters, helping me to remember details of my time with Charles, and for always having my back. I’ve got yours, too.
To my girls: Mia Navarro, Becky Carusso, Jennifer Preston, Janet Elder, Loretta James, and Jahovanny E spinal, I am a richer, happier person for knowing each of you. Thank you especially to Jahovanny, for babysitting when I was on deadline for this book.
To Lilian Polanco, Charles and I could not have asked for a more compassionate person to care for our son. Your love for Jordan, and his for you, enabled me to focus on reporting and writing without worrying about his welfare. You are doing God’s work.
To Dorothy Cunningham, you are one special dame. Thank you for talking me through the telling of my story.
To Major Nathan Banks, thank you for giving so generously of your time and knowledge while I was researching the military information for my book. I appreciate your patience and attention to detail. I am in your debt.
To my talented research assistants, Terry Aguayo and Lilliana Polanco, thank you for all of your hard work, especially the painstaking fact-checking. I know I required a lot of you, but I never doubted you would come through. I owe you both.
I want to thank my colleagues at the New York Times for helping me cope with Charles’s death and for being the first ones to show an interest in our story. I still remember coming back to work after he died and finding flowers and teddy bears on my desk and a mailbox stuffed with cards. I am grateful, too, for the scholarship fund for Jordan to which so many of you have contributed. I especially want to thank jill Abramson, my boss and friend. You were the first one who saw the potential for this book and encouraged me to write it. You walked with me in the park when I was feeling alone and lost. You even went shoe shopping with me when I needed a pick-me-up. What more could a girl ask for? I am so grateful for your friendship. Thank you, too, to Bill Schmidt and Glenn Kramon. I don’t think you realize how much your presence at Charles’s funeral helped me through that day, or how much of a difference your support since then has made.
To Kathleen McElroy and Grace Wong, thank you so much for being there in so many ways to help me through the toughest time of my life.
To Karen Kantor and Stanley Tobin and to Shawn Rogers, thank you for your amazing friendship, for supporting my book, and for helping me to “punch” my way through this time in my life. Let’s keep the gloves up.
To Roz Lichter, this book would never have been written without you. Thanks for all that you did to make it possible. Thank you also to Shaika Roberts for helping me to maintain an orderly home at a time when my sole focus was on my two babies—Jordan and this book.
I also want to humbly thank every reader of this book. I never intended to put my life on public display, but Charles and I shared a rare love and, after his death, I simply had to share our story and his spirit. My best to every one of you.
About the Author
DANA CANEDY is a senior editor at the New York Times, where she has been a journalist for twelve years. In 2001, Dana was part of a team at the New York Times that won a Pulitzer Prize for national reporting for “How Race Is Lived in America,” a series on race relations in the United States. She served as the paper’s Florida bureau chief during the 2000 presidential recount and the Columbia space shuttle explosion in 2003. She has also been assistant editor for national news at the
New York Times, responsible for overseeing breaking national news coverage, and a business and finance reporter.
Before joining the New York Times, Dana was a reporter at the Plain Dealer in Cleveland and the Palm Beach Post in West Palm Beach, Florida. She graduated from the University of Kentucky with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. Dana lives in New York City.
She invites you to visit her website:
A Journal for Jordan. com.
Copyright © 2008 by Dana Canedy
All rights reserved.
CROWN and the Crown colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
King, Charles Monroe, d. 2006
A journal for Jordan/Charles Monroe King.
p. cm.
1. King, Charles Monroe, d. 2006. 2. Iraq War, 2003 — Personal narratives, American. 3. Soldiers—UnitedStates—Correspondence.
I. Canedy, Dana. II. Title.
DS79.76.K545 2008
956.7044/3—dc22 2008034135
eISBN: 978-0-307-44971-9
v3.0
