Elizabeth Edwards

Saving Graces

Finding Solace and Strength from Friends and Strangers

Reviewed by Angela Hutchinson

Spirit-Works.net

Elizabeth Edwards grew up as a military dependent moving from place to place meeting those she would befriend and those from which she would learn the life altering lesson that people are good at heart.  She learned to trust a world of diversity and found that differences are not to be feared, but rather viewed from a larger perspective.  Her father and her mother taught her about this higher perspective, “We just had to recognize the sameness among us and build on that for our community.  We didn’t have to be the same; we just had to recognize what a great blessing we could be to one another”. 

The book delves into the meeting and union of her naval pilot father and her mother, “the daughter of a naval pilot and Mississippi farm girl”.  Elizabeth writes of her memories in Japan, Jacksonville, and Chapel Hill. She is quite enveloping and candid as she describes her childhood in the military and its more common struggles of frequent relocation.  “…the truth is, I was in those places, but they weren’t in me, not like a hometown is.  I didn’t watch them change as I grew, and cannot measure the changes in my life by the evolution of a place.”  Some would isolate from the constant readjustment, but Elizabeth appeared to reach out more to her neighbor and she learned about the true meaning of community. 

When the author attended college she began to feel the stirrings of injustice and the eventual protests when hearing about the killings at Kent State.  “I had stewed silently in the past, maybe because of my father or because of the faces of wounded soldiers I had seen in the hospital in Japan; maybe I was understandably conflicted about the tone of protests against our military instead of against our policies, whatever my reasons for inaction.  But this was different.  An in that moment I was different.” 

Elizabeth writes of how she met John, “a textile major from a small town”.  She writes of their many differences but continues to focus on their essential sameness.  Theirs is a love story that truly withstands time.

The heart wrenching chapter of Raleigh is more than most mothers can bear.  Elizabeth recounts the tragic loss of her son Wade in 1996 in an automobile accident.  I admire her ability to share with the reader, even when it means moving through the unspeakable pain once again.  The reader can feel the essence of her profound love she has for her children and the profound loss she felt when Wade’s absence was felt to her core .  She shares with the reader how she received comfort from her fellow online friends and confidantes.  Elizabeth understood that there were some who wanted to help but did not know what to do for her.  She knew to ask for what she needed and found their support to be an amazing source of nourishment. 

It was a joy to read how sweet Emma Claire and Jack came to be and how much joy they continue to bring their proud parents.

As her family’s political evolution came into being, Elizabeth describes the road to Washington and their adjustment to its political climate.   She begins her Washington account with the campaign and election of her spouse John to Senator of North Carolina.   The book then presents an amazingly descriptive account of the 2004 campaign of her husband John and eventual Kerry/Edwards campaign.  The support staff, family, and friends were a part of the process and the experience that made their government service a time they will not forget. 

As Elizabeth draws the book to a close, she shares her battle of breast cancer, the subject in which she begins Saving Graces with.  It is a battle she fought with her husband at the helm and her family by her side.  She is a woman of strength because she learned at an early age how to reach out to others and how to take care of her own needs by allowing others to reach out to her.  She believes in community because she is actively part of one.

Saving Graces is a story of strength, storms, and the rising phoenix of hope.  Albert Einstein once said that you must ask yourself, is this a friendly universe we live in or a hostile one?  Elizabeth Edwards believes it is a friendly universe and because of her belief she can relax in the wisdom that she will survive and that she will not be alone.  There are angels out there and there are times we must stand up to be that angel of mercy.  It is in lifting up others that we lift up ourselves.  Saving Graces is simply a letter of gratitude.