I am with the news on Elizabeth Edwards of which there is a tremendous amount. Everyone seems to have an opinion and everyone is affected. I am reminded of Franklin Roosevelt in this, of how he "ruled" despite his disability, and how the nation stood tall even when he was crippled.
My sense is that John and Elizabeth Edwards should take time together and they see it differently, and their seeing needs to be honored for them. I know an extra energy can come in when life is suddenly perceived as finite. Maybe there is something they can teach us here, and only they can know what works for them. It certainly is heart-breaking, and this morning when I took my Arimidex pill that costs $5.80 cents for one pill, even when supplemented by my insurance, I wondered if it does any good, and I know she is a percentage, and I am playing the odds with this, and I must admit that I feel a bit discouraged by it all in this moment, and it comes at a fragile time for me as I now am able to feel what happened last year and so am able to feel I would like some time without it, but that takes me back to what I thought I learned last year. Suffering is wanting things to be different than they are. This is how they are.
It sounds like some may vote for Edwards because of the strength shown here and others may not. For me, the whole playing field is too wide to know and I know I probably would find it very hard to vote for him, knowing her prognosis and that they have two young children who might be left without a mother, and, yet, perhaps all that will bring heart to a nation that seems to have lost something under the Bush administration. Who knows?
It is odd because if they had won when they first ran we would have this in front of us, would have gone through her last "battle," and no matter what, now, it seems we will go through this too. It seems they have entered our consciousness in a new way, and given us something to consider and that will always be there.
It is always there, this movement toward death, or change of form, and we are on a journey which does not stop until it does and then who knows what continues from there.
May your day feel rich in your bones and the pulse of your heart. Maybe for each one of us this is compost added to simmer and sift.
I have never been one to be interested in the private life of public figures, but this has drawn me in, I must admit. It hits me in the gut, and so it is.
