Notes on Elizabeth Edwards

Feeling at Home. John and Elizabeth Edwards made their announcement concerning her bone cancer from a garden in Chapel Hill, NC, the home of the University of North Carolina. Having lived in Chapel Hill for five years as a poli sci graduate student, the scene on television looked very comfortable and home-like to me.

Fighting Bone Cancer. From everything I've heard from Mrs. RSI the nurse, bone cancer is one of the most painful kinds of cancers and I wish Elizabeth Edwards the best. John Edwards is right though. It's important to stand up to this kind of crisis and keep doing what you believe in. When I was a grad student in Chapel Hill, the traumas from growing up in an abusive family crashed in on me so badly that even watching television was a struggle. But I got a lot of help from my therapists, friends, and girlfriend and gradually started turning the little corners that allowed me to go on with my education.

Props to John Edwards. Having gone through that trial myself, I have a lot of appreciation for the many people who fight these kinds of devastating problems and keep trying to figure out ways around them. Generally speaking, people don't get enough credit for their courage and tenacity in dealing with personal disasters. Living in Eastern Kentucky, I've seen seemingly countless numbers of people coping with difficulties of Biblical proportions in the most admirable kinds of ways. That kind of everyday courage doesn't get shown on television but still deserves profound respect.

I have to admit that I don't like John Edwards. He has a too much preacherly unctuousness for my taste. But today, Edwards was speaking a real truth about dealing with cancer and other kinds of life-altering issues and he deserves our respect as well as our best wishes.