Novelist Karen Kingsbury Meets Her Hero Rod Stewart

Novelist Karen Kingsbury visited New York City to meet with her publisher. Her novel, The Bridge, had become a best seller; her publisher signed her to a 10-book deal. After, she was walking the High Line elevated park on Manhattan’s West Side, thinking how she wished she could share the news with her father. Her dad, her “first and biggest fan,” had died six years earlier.

She murmured, “Have I told you lately that I love you, Dad?”

The line came from her father’s favorite song: the Rod Stewart version of “Have I Told You Lately.”  Her dad called her when he first heard it.  It summed up his feelings for his family, he said.  “Whenever you hear it, know that I love you.” They continued to call each other whenever and wherever they heard the song. “It connected us,” Karen says.

The title was engraved on her father’s headstone.

Walking with daughter, Kelsey, and son-in-law, Kyle, Karen thought this was “one of those moments when Dad would have been so proud of me, and I couldn’t share it with him.” To distract herself, she suggested taking a picture. She stretched her arm out, trying to hold the camera far enough away that she, Kelsey and Kyle were all in the frame. A man passing by offered to help. He was dressed stylishly in jeans and a sweater, had spiky blonde hair and spoke with an accent.

As the man walked away, it dawned on her.

She sped after him. “Excuse me, sir!”

He turned around.

“Are you Rod Stewart?”

“Sometimes,” he said.

She told him about her dad’s favorite song.

Tears filled his eyes. “Can I give you a hug?” he asked. He pulled her to him. “You made my day.”

Karen writes about the encounter in the August issue of Guideposts magazine. She concludes: “Just when I was missing my dad so badly, the rock star who sang our song crosses my path? Really? You could never plan or even imagine something like that!  But Someone had.”

(Thanks, Linda, for passing along this delightful Godsign story.)

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7 thoughts on “Novelist Karen Kingsbury Meets Her Hero Rod Stewart

  1. Elaine Greenberg

    What a great story—-what are the chances of this happening? It was obviously a “Godsign”. Thanks for sharing–loved it.

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