Lessons From The Twilight

The Anchoress has written a superb and thoughtful post, The Stumbling Block Of Elizabeth Edwards’ Cancer,  a post in which she characteristically stakes out a gentler, kinder and thoughtful look at the cancer that has tragically taken aim at the heart of the Edwards family.

The woman has cancer; it has returned and is sadly incurable but “treatable.” She and her husband have made a decision about how they will live their lives in the face of it. They’re entitled to make that decision without having to justify it to you or to me.

It never occurred to me that the Edwards would be “using” her terrible illness to gain sympathy and support for her husband, and while I am no fan of John Edwards, I still reject that notion and suggest that those who offer it might do well to look inside themselves and see if all they’ve offered up, by making such a charge, is a nasty bit of projection.

We tend to accuse others of precisely the thoughts and motives we harbor in our own hearts. I daresay there may be people in the world who would use a terminal illness to further an ambition, but such people…well…they’ve already lost something vital in their humanity. I don’t think Elizabeth Edwards has. Yes, yes, I know, she’s the one who supposedly loves the leftwing netroot blogs, but I still don’t think that means she is an unfeeling automaton of ambition. So, sue me.

In her post, The Anchoress does what she does best. She makes her readers pause and reflect. She sees no heroes and she sees no villains. She sees people struggling to deal with things they wish they did not have to struggle with. She sees how some get it right sometimes and how some make mistakes.

It is with that in mind that we are reposting The Giant In Our Midst: I Feel At Times I Am Empty Of What I Would Have Like To Have Been.”, a look at the fading twilight of Billy Graham.

What follows was originally published in August, 2006. 

Newsweek looks at a giant in our midst, Billy Graham, as he reflects on a life truly lived in a service to mankind. Like all great men, he contemplates his shortcomings and not his accomplishments:

If he had his life to live over again, Graham says he would spend more time immersed in Scripture and theology. He never went to seminary, and his lack of a graduate education is something that still gives him a twinge. “The greatest regret that I have is that I didn’t study more and read more,” he says. “I regret it, because now I feel at times I am empty of what I would like to have been…”

Graham continues to teach, by example. The man who has dined with presidents, kings and queens, finds satisfaction closer to home:

Ruth dwells at the center of his world. “At night we have time together; we pray together and read the Bible together every night,” he says. “It’s a wonderful period of life for both of us. We’ve never had a love like we have now—we feel each other’s hearts.”

Newsweek recounts,

…he seems congenitally incapable of surrendering completely to the weakness of the body. “All my life I’ve been taught how to die, but no one ever taught me how to grow old,” Graham remarked one day to his daughter Anne Graham Lotz. “And I told him, ‘Well, Daddy, you are now teaching all of us’.”

Indeed. As the giant in our midst comes to rest, he can teach us much.

Hat Tip: Kate, of Small Dead Animals.

The Edwards Campaign

Katie Couric asked John and Elizabeth Edwards some tough questions about her cancer and his determination to maintain his campaign for the presidency, despite her failing health.

Critics of Couric note that she did not take a leave of absence from the Today Show to be by her husbands side when he was stricken with colon cancer.

There is a big difference in how John Edwards is responding to his wife’s cancer and in how Katie Couric addressed her husband’s illness.

Katie Couric got up at 4:00 AM every day and was home before her kids returned from school. She was at her husband’s side, every day.

John Edwards will be on the road, campaigning and traveling 24/7. He will not return to her side every day and no amount of 10 minute telephone calls between campaign obligations home can change that.

John Edwards is an expert at selling and packaging junk. He made his fortune by knowingly lying to juries about the cause cerebral palsy. He claimed the disease was brought on by faulty obstetric care. He also exposed North Carolina physicians and hospitals to lawsuits, if, even after the fact, patients claimed they really did not understand the risks of particular procedure.

John Edwards has amassed a fortune of up to 60 million dollars in North Carolina (others say the number is higher as a result of below the radar real estate and other investments)

Since Edwards’ lawsuits, the costs of health care in North Carolina have skyrocketed.

This ‘Champion of the People’ also found a loophole that allowed him to avoid paying Medicare taxes to the tune of $591,000. He is despised in his own state of North Carolina and held in rather low regard.

(It is interesting to note that neither Gore or Edwards were able to carry their own state in the last presidential election. It seems the people who know them best, really do know them best.

As an aside, Elizabeth Edwards is held in high esteem in North Carolina. It is said that she, and not he, has the credibility and integrity).

For a more realistic analysis of Elizabeth Edwards medical condition, see Respectful Insolence and The Cheerful Oncologist.

John Edwards is not playing to a jury and he has no business selling ‘junk science.’

No family in America or anywhere else for that matter, has been untouched by the tragedy of cancer. Patients afflicted with cancer want- and need- their lives and the lives around them, to go on. It is also true that facing cancer realistically is as important for the family of a cancer patient as it is for the patient.

Political campaigning that will keep John Edwards from his wife is not in their best interest, nor is it in the best interest of their children. ‘Why did you stay in the race when mommy was ill?” is not a question that can be easily answered.

We pray that Elizabeth Edwards has a full and speedy recovery and we pray that her family is blessed with her presence for years and decades to come.

This is one time we want to be wrong, please God.