Next up on the 2009 reading list is a book I not really intended on reading, but since Todd picked it up and had a positive response to it... plus it looked to be a quick read, I decided to give it a go...
... and believe me there isn't a more accurate word for Elizabeth Edwards than Resilience! Heck, I think she is being way to modest in the subtitle, Reflections on the Burden and Gifts of Facing Life's Adversities. I am guessing many folks can do a pretty good job rattling off Edwards' burdens and adversities from the most recent one, her husband's extra-marital affair... to the recurrence of her cancer, this time of terminal... and the cruelest one of them all (if one could possibly rank these things), her first-born son killed in a car accident in 1996.
There's still more... a childhood spent in Japan thanks to a Navy man father, the death of her beloved father, the mere fact of being the wife of the politician (bad enough) let alone a presidential candidate (twice!)... and giving birth at age 48 and 50! Yes, her picture should be in the dictionary next to the word "resilience!"
It's a good thing that this book is short and quick (there not always mutually exclusive things!), because even when you know what's coming, this book is quite emotionally exhausting. And all credit to Edwards for being so open, honest, brave in telling her story (and get ready these are words I will be using over and over again). And you do get the sense that it is Edwards telling her story. This is not sanitized or even super spiffed-up by some ghost-writer or editor. I am guessing there aren't many Republicans would be caught reading this, but I'll note that this book has little to do with politics (if that thing turns you off)... or for that matter even her husband's affair, which when the book came made it seem like it was 90% of the book (actually it's just the opposite)!
This misconception was one of the reasons I wasn't interested in the book. I was tired of hearing about the affair and I certainly wondered why the heck Elizabeth (I am just going to start using first names now to avoid confusion) would want to drag this stuff out in public again. And when she was on the press tour, she seemed so dodgy and uncomfortable and put conditions on the interview (i.e. the other woman's name could never be mentioned) or was saying stuff that didn't make sense (i.e. the alleged love child would not affect her life... really?). It just seemed like all this was was still quite raw for her and I found it to be very awkward... painfully awkward... watching her sort this out publicly. That said, my opinion did change when I finally heard her say (near the end of this press tour) that she was under contract to produce this book long before the affair ever surfaced ... so she was contractually obligated to deliver the book with chapters that she never had suspected at the time would be closing the book.
But despite coming around a bit on this subject matter, I still came to a quite odd conclusion upon finishing the memoir. While it just seems heinous that John would cheat on Elizabeth and then lie about it more... okay, here is where I'm going to step into it big time... I can almost understand why he would... and did.
I don't know the actual statistic, but I have read the majority of marriages do not survive the death of a child... and it was easy to see why as Elizabeth quite honestly/bravely details moments after her son's death (even years later) where she is clearly not acting in a sane manner. This is not judgment... I certainly can not understand ... nor do I think anyone who hasn't gone through it can understand, but I do think that it is one of the most (if not the most) devastating that could happen to a person. But it's clear the impossibly heavy stress it places on all the survivors. And if that's not enough, I don't know what it's like to live with someone who has cancer... but vicariously, I know that my mother was forever changed, and not in a positive way (at all), by caring for her mother who suffered from Alzheimer's. Just the combination of these two things, even years apart, is unbearable.
So yes, I can see why John was tempted and succumbed as an escape to all that. Now, I am not condoning it... and it just seems incomprehensible to deal his wife another card in an already stacked deck... so while I think his actions are explainable, I think it is just yet another chapter in the incredible hubris that seems to be a requirement in a political career these days .
Even in this review, the percentage of time I am giving the affair is not reflective of the time it is given in this book. Heck, John does not seem to get much "air" time either in the book. I think is a reflection of Elizabeth still being a "work in progress" when it comes to her husband. But again, it was a very interesting read, where I could not help myself doing a little psychoanalyzing on myself.
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