Peace, Elizabeth Edwards.

The death of Elizabeth Edwards has unexpectedly shaken me. I have always liked her. The more I read about her the more I respected her. There was a time I wish she were running for office instead of John. The Edwards family lived not far from me when they lived in Raleigh. Every single day I pass by the Wade Edwards Learning Lab, named for the Edwards’ son who died in a car accident at age 16. I canvassed at the Edwards home during the Kerry/Edwards bid for the White House. I remember seeing their address on my list and feeling a rush when my friend Will and I knocked on the door. No one answered.

Years later I met Elizabeth Edwards at a book signing. It turns out she knew my stepdad. They endured early morning rounds of radiation in each other’s company. He, respecting her privacy and holding close that intimate experience, never told us. My mom discovered it when she was getting her hair cut and reading, what else, People magazine. Apparently there was an excerpt from Edwards’ book Saving Graces that gave my mom the clues she needed to come storming home excitedly inquiring if my stepfather had indeed been through radiation treatment with Elizabeth Edwards. THE Elizabeth Edwards. He confirmed it with characteristic lack of fanfare. He saw her as a fellow patient, a fellow compadre in the battle to crush cancer, an early morning companion. They didn’t chat politics or gossip. They met in the early mornings, he before work, she before the kids were starting the morning rush of a school day.

This is his story. This is her story. This is their story, as she told it in her book. Elizabeth Edwards mentions how she enjoyed the company of a German man who wore black wingtips everyday. After some security mishaps and privacy breeches she no longer came in the front entrance so she and my stepdad missed their camaraderie. She wrote in her book that she had always wondered what happened to her German friend.

I stood in line to meet Elizabeth Edwards at a book signing at Raleigh’s famed Quail Ridge Books. I told her that indeed that German man she wrote of is my stepfather and that he is doing very well. She hugged me like I was her friend. Her joy was genuine and palpable. Elizabeth Edwards put down her pen, took both my hands into hers, looked me straight in the eye, and thanked me. Thanked me! She was graciously thanking me for sharing good news about a man she came to care about. She told me she is thrilled every single time someone tells her a tale of beating cancer. She gave my hands one more squeeze and took the pen in hand again, a new smile washed upon her face.

Some of us knew Elizabeth Edwards as an author. To others she was a cancer patient, a fighter, a statement maker. We knew her as a gem dazzling with grace and class. We knew her as an advocate, a voice, a bastion of resilience. We all felt we knew her in some way because she was so approachable and earnest. But it’s those three people who knew her as Mommy who make my heart wail the loudest.

Peace.