Tuesday, October 25, 2011
I am a lucky girl. My father, George Kingman, loved me and he let me know it. He sent me National Geographic and The Washington Post ever since I left home at 17 for college. He quoted Shakespeare and TS Eliot. He sang me to sleep with Oh, Shenandoah, I long to see you... and he comforted me back to sleep when I had a nightmare. He encouraged me to pursue my interests, and he was super nice to all of my friends. Maybe not nice (at least cordial) to all of my boyfriends, but looking back, with good reason. When I called Dad and Mom from Chicago with big news- I was getting married and having a baby, they were here two weeks later to meet the man. After our baby was born, he and my Mom travelled to Chicago for two weeks to help, and loved me even a little more for giving him a grandson. Forgiving all of the stuff and nonsense I provided on the side, my dad loved me, straight up. I will love him always for all the days of my life.
Susan Kingman
"To die, to sleep, to sleep perchance to dream, ah there's the rub; for in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we shuffle off this mortal coil."
loosely, William Shakespeare
