Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/21363
THIS WEEK WITH MARGARET by MARGARET DICKSON I write this column on the dark and rainy winter day that Elizabeth Edwards was buried in Raleigh. It is a day unlike her in every way. I met Elizabeth Edwards and her family in the summer of 1995 when the future United States Senator was a successful trial lawyer, she was an attorney who had chosen to be a highly engaged stay-at- home mom, and I was working in my family business. The setting was a pizza parlor full of families not unlike ours, and the occasion was dinner the night before summer camp began for young Wade Edwards, my oldest Precious Jewel, and other boys eager to play sports all day. The next summer Wade Edwards would die in a car accident, and Elizabeth Edwards’ life would be changed forever. None of us munching pizza and chasing children that summer evening could have imagined the impact her life would have on people far beyond her world as a North Carolina mother — on people she knew, people she met, and people she would never know. Elizabeth and I were never close friends, but we liked each other, shared friends, and crossed paths from time to time. A veteran prosecutor once told me that one of the biggest shocks of his career was realizing that mothers do not always act in the best interests of their own children — that they side with the men in their lives over their children, that they allow their children to be used, even abused, in the most despicable ways, that they sometimes use and abuse their children themselves. I suspect Elizabeth Edwards, smart and worldly as she was, could not allow herself to think about such things. At its heart, hers was the sensibility of a fi erce and fi nely-tuned mother, not only to her own children but as a motherly and comforting friend to the thousands of people she met or touched from afar after her once private life in Raleigh became a thoroughly public one played out on the stage of the world. My lasting impression of Elizabeth Edwards will remain her commitment to her children and her broader family, and that quality shone in the words of Elizabeth Edwards. her daughter, Cate, at her funeral service. Her mother, said Cate, could “bring out the brave in anyone.” What greater gift could any parent impart than that? There was so much more. Her uncompromising honesty always struck me. Facing a cancer diagnosis and under criticism for supporting her husband’s continuation of his Presidential campaign, Elizabeth Edwards had the sanest reaction I have ever heard to dealing with a serious illness or any other adversity. We all have, she said, two choices in such situations. We can continue what we are doing as best we can and try to move forward or we can quit and start dying. I hope that if I ever face that sort of adversity that I will remember and heed what she said. Elizabeth Edwards connected with people in extraordinary ways. Her warmth and honesty engendered trust, and people wanted to meet her, talk with her, perhaps even touch her. Two stories stand out to me. One is of a woman who came to a book signing and told Elizabeth that she, too, had lost a son and was a cancer survivor. Without hesitation, Elizabeth said, “Well, we must hug,” and promptly did so. The other I heard during news coverage of her funeral. A woman who never knew Elizabeth attended the service alone. She, a breast cancer survivor from Palm Beach, Florida, said she felt compelled to be there. And, oh my word!, there is her writing. I do not know when or how she started writing, whether that had been part of her life’s routine for years, but her two published books are beautifully written, expressing her honesty about what life brought her way, the good and the bad. Her knowledge of herself and others presented with a fi ne command of language give her books a deep poignancy that makes them meaningful to millions of readers. People did not buy Elizabeth Edwards’ books because she was the wife of a political fi gure. We bought them because she spoke to our hearts. There are more aspiring writers than we will ever know who have spent years trying to do what Elizabeth did with such skill and grace in only months. A friend died almost 20 years ago, leaving a grieving husband and a fi ve- year-old child who had no idea how life changed in an instant. She planned her funeral, which included a rendition of “Teach Your Children Well” by Crosby Stills Nash & Young. Elizabeth planned her funeral, too, and it refl ected her love of family, her honesty, and the people who loved and cherished her. She also wrote a letter to her three surviving children, words they can refer to as they go through their lives, and she closed with these words. “Wherever I am, wherever you are, my arms are wrapped around you.” Many people are comforted by that generous thought. MARGARET DICKSON, Contributing Writer COMMENTS? 484-6200 ext. 222 or editor@upandcomingweekly.com. THIS WEEK WITH MARGARET A Life Well Lived 484-6200 www.upandcomingweekly.com 8 UCW DECEMBER 15-21, 2010 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM