Passings

I am saddened by the death of Elizabeth Edwards.  Her illness always seemed to me unnecessary and unnecessarily hastened by, what I deemed, a reckless failure to have annual mammograms. 

Her grace in living with the disease, however, was impressive.  She fought and accepted, something difficult to accomplish simultaneously.  The news reports highlight that, in her last days, she was surrounded by her family, including ex-husband John Edwards; she spent years writing letters to her children and preparing them as well as making sure they had paternal support in the dark days; and stage three breast cancer can be hard to beat and she not only survived for six years but truly lived.  But never do they mention the incredible toll John's wanton life choices and consequences had on the progression of her disease.


I suspect that Elizabeth's death was quickened by John's reckless conduct.  During those last six years, in addition to the stresses of everyday life and presidential campaigns, she had to deal with her husband's betrayal, humiliation, out-of-wedlock child and, ultimately, divorce.   Any one of these life crises could facilitate illness, exhaustion, depression and so on.  But all at once; and while fighting cancer.  That seems cruel.  And I hold John Edwards accountable.  Elizabeth may have forgiven him, but I have not.


Speaking of death, it is the 30th anniversary of John Lennon's passing.  That day, I had worked the early morning news shift at WVBR-FM, Cornell University's radio station, when word of his death came in (it took a bit of time for the news to make it to Ithaca).  I ran off to my class, a discussion group from the big lecture class taught by the reknown historian Walter LaFeber.  Unlike most sections taught by grad students, or TAs, mine was taught by a full-fledged professor.  I ran into the class, blurting the news of Lennon's demise and turned to the professor to explain that "Lennon was one of the Beatles."  He was quite insulted that I thought he wouldn't be familiar.  Fortunately, my grade didn't suffer.