Saving Graces: Finding Solace and Strength from Friends and Strangers

This autobiography is a more-than-detailed account of the events in the life of Elizabeth Edwards, wife of John Edwards, the Democrats’ 2004 Vice Presidential candidate It is also a resounding testament to the power of the networks we all create from the people around us, networks that serve to hold us up, help us out, and deepen our experiences.

As the title indicates, Elizabeth Edwards feels herself blessed in this regard, and the book is a love letter to the people who have enriched her life, from her family and close friends, to her smiling mailman. Whether the contacts are life-long or merely a snatched moment, she is deeply grateful for their positive presence in her life.

And a fascinating life it is. As the daughter of a military pilot, she spent her childhood moving between cultures as widely disparate as a small city in Japan and the US Naval Academy in Annapolis. The eldest of three children, Elizabeth — a brilliant student (brilliant being my word, not hers, although she modestly admits to having done well in school) — speaks of her family, both her childhood family and the family she and her husband have created, with enormous love and appreciation.

Her fondness for everyone in her support group, all the way back to childhood, leads her to recounting long lists of names from every stage of her life. At times this can seem tedious to those of us who do not know the individuals, and yet these “saving graces” are, after all, what this book is all about. (And for many of us seniors, her ability to recall all those names is amazing.)

Edwards was a practicing lawyer until the death of her sixteen-year-old son, Wade. Her description of her grief over that loss goes beyond heartbreaking, as she speaks honestly and painfully of the process of mourning (which does not end), and of the many avenues she traveled, seeking ways to turn her pain into positive actions. Inspired by her son’s observation that many of his classmates didn’t have access to computers, after his death she and her husband founded the Wade Edwards Learning Lab across the street from his high school. It is a place where students can go to seek help with homework, or use computers under the guidance of a knowledgeable staff.

Mrs. Edwards also reached out to the Internet, participating in several grief support groups at that time, and later, during her battle with breast cancer, connecting with others who have dealt with the disease. In both instances, she quotes from several of the meaningful messages she received. She notes that the Net’s great strength is community, something many of us at Senior Women Web know well. As she says, when you are unable to sleep at 4 a.m., it is a lifesaver to know that you can go online and find someone else, somewhere in the world, who understands your pain.

Her introduction to the political world also receives carefully annotated attention, as she and her husband move to Washington, DC after his election to the senate. Through all the campaigns, one is constantly aware that they are very much a team, a team with formidable intelligence and earnest intentions. It scarcely matters whether or not one agrees with their world view: Edwards’s ability to articulate it is a welcome breath of fresh air in a world of political hyperbole.

There are entirely too many women in this world who will be able to relate to Edwards’s discovery of a lump in her breast, followed by the diagnosis, announcement to friends and family, and the series of treatments that followed. But there probably won’t ever be another woman whose husband was running for the office of Vice President of the United States when her cancer was detected, just eleven days before Election Day. Afraid that a prompt announcement would bring accusations of looking for a sympathy vote, she made the laudable decision to withhold the bad news until after the election. We get a glimpse of the stress that decision cost her when, on Election Day, she tells us that she fell apart and sobbed after receiving an unflattering hairdo. Her tears caused the young hairdresser to dissolve in tears also. Edwards resolved the situation by taking the youngster aside and — swearing her to absolute secrecy — explaining that the cause of her tears was really the lump in her breast, not the hairdo.

It is Edwards’s kindness and honesty and common sense that shine through every chapter of  Saving Graces. She comes across as anything but a typical Washington wife, and this reader, at least, would vote for her in second, if only she were the one running.

— Julia Sneden

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