Dear Rhonda: Life Lessons from a Father to His Daughter

With these letters, [Rhonda] will always know how I felt, what I said, what I thought she should do, and how to tackle a problem. With these letters, she should know I loved her enough to sacrifice my wants for her needs, enough to make the unpopular decisions that would make her dislike me for a little while, but thank me later, enough to be the father more men should be. —from the Introduction

Demitri Kornegay has served as a police officer for almost two decades. Because of the nature of his profession, he knew that he could be killed in the line of duty at any time. And this knowledge forced him to wonder how he could ever properly convey to his daughter, Rhonda, all of the fatherly advice that he had accumulated over the years.

So Demitri started writing letters to Rhonda. In each letter, he tackled a difficult subject and ended up touching on everything from love and relationships to death to race relations, all the while encouraging his daughter to use his words as a springboard to develop her own life philosophies. When he read over the completed letters, Demitri realized that even though he had written them to his daughter, they really could be read and appreciated by anyone.

This collection of fatherly wisdom provides the kind of sound advice that anyone—young or old—can learn from.

1. You ARE special.

2. God has an important job for you, and everything you go through prepares you for it.

3. Everything will be all right in the morning; maybe not tomorrow morning, but one morning is going to come and everything will be all right.

—from the chapter “18 Things to Remember”

Demitri Kornegay is a lieutenant with the Montgomery County Police Department in Montgomery County, Maryland. A gifted motivational speaker, he is well known in the Washington, D.C., area for the frank messages he has delivered to high schoolers. He has one daughter, nineteen-year-old Rhonda Michelle Kornegay. You can reach him via e-mail at nerokorn@aol.com.