Elizabeth Edwards, Living Life to the Fullest
"While (Elizabeth) Edwards may be forced to confront her mortality now, everyone must eventually face up to it. In the words of the psalmist, "Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom." For some, that wisdom may mean a recommitment to family; for others it may be travel or a dedication to causes they hold dear. In Edwards' case it may be the conviction that her husband is best suited to lead the country and that fighting for issues he has championed -- eliminating poverty, providing affordable health care -- is how she wants to be remembered." -- Leah Friedman and Yonat Shimron, News and Observer, "From Now on, Choices Will Be Very Personal."
I've met Elizabeth Edwards four times, and each experience was delightful. In 2002, while doing some consulting work for her husband's political action committee, I sat beside her when Senator Edwards outlined his views on education reform at the University of Maryland. Her candor and humor were so refreshing. "The thing I hate most about John," she joked to me, "is that he refuses to age." But her admiration for her husband was striking, particularly as she recalled his hard-scrabble upbringing. I told her I grew up in Scotland County, NC and she recalled that one of John's summer jobs was to carry a rifle and guard a roadside chain gang in the blazing summer heat near Wagram, N.C., my hometown.
In 2006, I listened to 
an impressive podcast of her experiences in online communities since 1996 and last October, heard her speak at Converge South. She shared with the audience (in passing) her deI.icio.us links, which she still adds to occasionally, a fascinating window into the eclectic stuff she's looking at online. I told her she was more fanatical about online communication than I am, and she joked that "it's hard on your family, isn't it?" Yes, it is, I replied. A month later, she came to my neighborhood of Fearrington Village, to speak at McIntyre's Bookstore about her book, Saving Graces: Finding Solace and Strength from Friends and Strangers. That's where I took this picture. She was very personable then, too, and in her beautiful handwriting, inscribed this note to my wife in her book: "To Lucia, who is blessed, as am I, with a fine husband." I was in the audience a few weeks later when she and John appeared on Hardball with Chris Matthews and she charmed everyone then, too.
If a strong psyche, great attitude and tons of emotional support can overcome a terminal illness, Elizabeth Edwards will have it, because she is so open-armed and welcoming of connections with other people.
In her book, Elizabeth pretty well explains what motivates her, even after a cancer diagnosis:
Without talking to a doctor, I believed it would do no harm if I chose to wait the four days until the election to do the biopsy and begin treatment -- whatever that was going to mean. I had already waited for more than a week.
But there was another reason.
During the months I spent campaigning, I had gotten to know so many people around the country, and I don't mean "know" them like I spent twenty minutes talking to them from the stage. I mean that they shared their deepest fears with me. A day didn't pass that someone didn't cry in my arms: their son was getting ready to leave for Iraq and they were trying to buy him body armor from the Internet, their company was moving to Korea and the place they had worked for thirty years was closing, their health insurance company had increased their premiums so much that insurance was now out of reach, Medicare premiums, gas prices, college costs, all going up when their wages were going down, and the list went on and on. I couldn't even think about stopping or letting John stop. Those faces -- the parents in Manchester, the wife in Sandusky, the father in Detroit -- were with me, and they were why John and I got up each morning, week after week, month after month. We couldn't stop. Lump or no lump, cancer or not, I had to continue to talk to as many people as possible, debate whatever issue needed debating, and do what I could for those people, and more importantly, John had to do the same....
Related:
- John and Elizabeth Edwards on "60 Minutes." She says she sees this as a teachable moment, so that Americans can see someone who "lives with cancer" rather than just dies of cancer.
