Mother Raises Son With Father's Wisdom

Dec. 29, 2008— -- For Dana Canedy, it was a classic case of opposites attracting. She was a hard-charging New York Times reporter, her fiance 1st Sgt. Charles King a career military man of few words but unshakeable convictions.

In 2005, Canedy gave birth to their son Jordan, while King was on combat patrol in Iraq's notorious Triangle of Death. Jordan was already 4 months old the first time he met his father, when King was home on a two-week leave from the Army.

Six weeks later, King, 48, was killed by a roadside bomb on an isolated road near Baghdad.

"As one of his soldiers put it to me," Canedy recalls, "his spirit was trying to stay with us but his body just couldn't. I just wish I could have been there to put my arms around him and tell him it was OK to go."

Today, Jordan is an active 2-and-a-half year old whose room is full of toys and mementos of his father, including a pair of King's shoes with his socks still inside.

Click here to read an excerpt from "A Journal for Jordan."

"One of the things I like about the shoes is you can still see the outline of his foot," Canedy says. "And I can feel it. If I close my eyes, I can feel his foot in there."

Although King is no longer with them, Canedy strives every day to make sure Jordan can feel his father's presence. Thankfully, she has a little help from King himself, a life story that Denzel Washington has optioned for a possible movie.

Canedy says King understood the risks of war and what it could mean for his family, so he left behind a journal for his son, filled with a father's wisdom. In some ways, Canedy believes that King wrote his words with the awareness that he might not make it back to his family. "I think there were many days he felt that way," she says.

Inside, King addresses the issues Jordan is not yet old enough to ask about: intolerance, faith and even his experiences in combat.

"It is all right for boys to cry," one passage reads. "It's not fair to judge someone by the content of their skin," reads another. King even gives simple advice, like where to hide money on vacation -- "in your shoe or a secret compartment."

King was committed to completing the journal while serving in Iraq but after the death of one of his soldiers months before his own death, King sent the journal home.