It Was A Life Well Lived

by Kathleen Bingaman

It was a life well lived. It was much longer than originally expected but still far too short. George had overcome so many obstacles already; I hoped he would somehow be able to overcome this most challenging one. But, we are only given so many heartbeats and his ended September 20.

When George was born in 1955, the doctors told his parents not to worry if they spoiled their son since children with a heart condition such as his rarely lived past 5 years of age. Although he was a pale, sickly child who could not play with his classmates at school because of his fragile health, he did manage to survive until 1968 by which time Children’s Hospital in Baltimore had developed techniques to perform plastic surgery on aortic valves. After the surgery, his health improved enough to keep him alive until valve replacement surgery was perfected. He had the first of his three valve replacements on

his 21st birthday at Emory University Hospital. In 1993, he was hospitalized for 28 days with bacterial endocarditis: an infection of the sack around the heart that is often fatal and which damaged the scar tissue around the aortic valve.

But his life changed in 1984 when he caught sight of a “cute blonde” student he recognized from the computer lab and followed her out of the library at Dekalb Community College. They stood in the hall outside the library and talked until 9:00 that night, went to dinner and then sat in her car talking until 2:45, when her mother came looking for her. And thus was an extraordinary romance born. From the day he met me, George said he knew that I was the woman he would marry--he just had to convince me. I planned a very different life than what he was offering - I intended to be the first female head of the Federal Reserve and I didn’t have time for romance and marriage. I introduced him to every unmarried female friend I had, trying to find someone for him but he insisted that I was the one he wanted. I repeatedly told him that I was not interested and asked him to stop pursuing me. Yet, he persisted. We went to dinner (dutch treat), concerts and museums; we spent hours talking and telling stories and, eventually I fell as deeply in love with him as he was with me. Our first ‘official’ event as a couple was hosting the first of what would become an annual Christmas party. On Valentine’s Day 1985, almost six months after our first date, he got down on bended knee in the middle of the dining room at the Westin and asked me to marry him and wouldn’t get up until I said yes. He promptly went back to my parents’ house and asked my father for permission to marry me, honoring my father’s very traditional way of looking at the world. We set the wedding for 18 months later (September 1986) to give me time to graduate from Georgia State University and for us