While I’m sure many blogs and columnists will talk about the political ramifications of John Edwards’s decision to keep his campaign running in the midst of his wife’s new battle with cancer, I’m more interested in the emotional cost. The NYT’s article covering the announcement that Elizabeth Edwards’s breast cancer has metastasized states that patients with stage four cancers have only a 25% chance that they will be alive in five years. In other words, it’s highly unlikely that Elizabeth Edwards would even make it through the first term of John Edwards’s presidency should he actually win. It sounds like Elizabeth Edwards received her death sentence today, but by refusing to even pause his campaign her husband’s acting like she got the flu. Why?
We all know what kind of breakneck pace a presidential candidate needs to maintain in order to fund raise, strategize, build net roots, and cultivate relationships with early primary states. When exactly are John and Elizabeth going to sit down and talk about the very real and serious fact that she will most likely be dead by 2015? It seems to me there needs to be some grieving, some confrontation with naked reality, some serious decision making, some emotions that need to be shared and experienced. How can this couple adequately address these emotionally daunting issues on the campaign trail? Don’t they want to spend their remaining years together focusing on one another and not press releases and political picnics and attack ads? Doesn’t Elizabeth deserve her husband’s support and attention now more than ever? Instead it’s a ‘sign of strength’ that the campaign continues, it’s somehow ‘cowering in the corner’ to admit that one might have some, I don’t know, serious feelings about, you know, dying. John and Elizabeth equate taking time off, even a suspension of the campaign, as an acknowledgement of defeat, as if to take a step back from politics in order to breathe and reflect and feel and love was some kind of weakness. There is something depressingly American about denying ones feelings and seeing that as a sign of victory and strength. The desire to keep the campaign upbeat and optimistic and free of doubt, or depressing news, or sadness is a hollow attempt to deny the very real fact that Elizabeth doesn’t have long to live. What’s going to happen to all that bottled up grief, and rage, and fear? How is it going to affect John and Elizabeth’s children to pretend like nothing’s changed? John, your wife is going to die. It’s okay to take a day off. If anything, acting like Elizabeth has a ‘manageable’ sickness like high blood pressure is emotionally disingenuous not just to the public but also to Edwards’s family, and might turn voters off in the end. If he’s such a good husband, if he’s of such sterling character that he deserves to be president, why isn’t he spending time with his wife right now? Maybe she’s insisting that he keep up the good fight and carry on with the campaign. Maybe so. But it’s his job to tell her no, that she’s more important than being president. As an old boss of mine once said, ‘you’re either working hard or hardly working’. American identity is so wrapped up with one’s commitment to work that sometimes our basic humanity gets punched away in the time clock. Spinning a gaffe on Meet the Press is one thing, but spinning death is downright cowardly. There is plenty of work to be done for John Edwards, but it’s not on the campaign trail.
4 comments:
Greer,
First off, congrats on the blog! And may I say, it's about time. Why didn't anyone suggest you do this long ago? Blog prolifically for us, please. Now, since I can't write original material of my own, I'll proceed to merely comment on yours.
First, this doesn't sound like a death sentence for Elizabeth Edwards. In that Times article, it says she's in a different risk group than the 26% survival category: "Mrs. Edwards had “regional” disease at the time of diagnosis, meaning it had spread to some lymph nodes; five-year survival for women in that category is 81.3 percent, and cancer specialists said that the stage at initial diagnosis is the one that still counts."
But for the sake of argument, even if we assume she had five years to live, who is anyone to say that John Edwards isn't grieving enough? At what point does his grieving reach a socially acceptable level? Is a suspension of the campaign good enough, or should he cancel it all together? How can we possibly know how this couple is privately dealing with Elizabeth's diagnosis?
Given that this couple has already lost a teenage son, I think they would know a thing or two about dealing with death, and would probably resent people telling them they're doing it all wrong. We have no idea what went into their decision to keep the campaign going. In fact, there's a million things we don't know about their marriage. Maybe their marriage thrived like never before while they were working together as a team on his campaign in '04, and they're excited about doing it again. Maybe her dying wish is to see the man she loves become president one day, and watch her two kids witness that day, too. Or maybe with such an uncertain diagnosis, they don't want to sit around for the next five-ten years, waiting for her to die, without really, you know, living life.
So let John and Elizabeth Edwards live their lives. I really doubt that a cancer patient of three years hasn't thought out with her husband all the possible "what if" scenarios. Sure, the 30-second spot on TV doesn't show them crying, or holding each other, or reaffirming their love for one another. And why should it? Who in their right mind would want to invite cameras in for that? I'm sure plenty of it is happening off-stage, where it should be.
McIntyre
From the NYT:
"Mrs. Edwards’s doctor said at the news conference that she had metastatic, or Stage 4, breast cancer, meaning that it is in an advanced stage that has spread beyond the breast and lymph nodes, in her case to the bone.
According to statistics from the American Cancer Society, only 26.1 percent of patients with Stage 4 breast cancer live five years or more, but those figures are by nature outdated and do not reflect recent medical advances."
Whether it's 26 or 46, still frighteningly low odds. I'll respond to your other comments later. Thanks for posting!
Hmm... Greer, a powerful message and Mac, a powerful response. As it happens I am heading down to Delaware today for a Victory Celebration (i.e. funeral, but such a morbid term, I agree, does not seem appropriate) for the passing of one of our close friends who battled brain cancer. Her name also happens to be Elizabeth. http://miva.delawareonline.com/miva
/cgi-bin/miva?obits.mv+67463
A la Greer, Edwards signed up for exposure of the most intimate details of his life when he jumped on the campaign trail. This should be no surprise to him from the last time around. The public wants to know what hardship means to him and what his response to earth-shattering news is. Is the stuff that makes a viable president also the stuff that would make a presidential hopeful bow out of the race? Certainly his supporters and would-be supporters don't want to see him out of the race nor do they want him to ignore the necessary process of grief.
A la Mac, there is no "right" way to greive. How can there be? It's inappropriate to tell somehow to feel. Feelings are. I'm not getting relativist here: feelings and your subsequent actions to those feelings are separate things. And so it is all very sticky.
We will judge. That's what Edwards has asked us to do by his own nomination. Other than that, we can and should, hope and pray that John and Elizabeth stay on the same page and make their decisions together.
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