Author Q&A

Saving Graces: Finding Solace and Strength from Friends and Strangers
by Elizabeth Edwards

(Page 3 of 5)

How are you feeling these days - in terms of your spirits and your health?

At my last clinic visit - after a round of scans to check for signs of cancer - my doctor, Lisa Carey, looked at the stack of papers I brought with me to work on while I was waiting and she said, "You have a lot going on, but cancer is not one of them." Those were great words to hear, and it is impossible not to feel buoyed by that news. Are there still lingering ailments? Sure, but "cancer is not one of them" so I am not complaining.

When did you begin to write Saving Graces? What were the challenges of trying to capture your life in a manuscript?

The bulk of Saving Graces was written in the winter and early spring of 2006. I had written pieces before but the book started to take shape only after I made a daily commitment. For the months it took to write, the children always knew where to find me: at the computer. Sometimes, I have to admit, I was also in the attic, going through old photographs or newspaper clippings to make certain I had names and dates right, and - far from being work - that part was great fun.

The challenges of capturing any life in a book are that it took 57 years to get here and no one will read something that takes 57 years to finish. So the process of editing means by definition leaving things out. It is hard when you have lived the life to know which parts can be conveyed in a book and which parts should be relegated to family reunions. That is where having a great editor, as I did with Stacy Creamer at Broadway Books, is invaluable.

Your childhood recollections are full of interesting details. How did living overseas shape your sense of what it means to be an American? Do you think being an American today conveys the same meaning as when you were a child?

Growing up overseas in military communities meant that we were totally American without having many of the touchstones to American culture that others in our generation would have. (Imagine that there is a decade in your growing up where you didn't see a single television show, for example.) I think in many ways it meant we clung to being American even more fiercely. I have tried to pass that aspect to our children, developing a deep and real pride in our country.

There was a time before September 11th when I think we might have seen a general drift away from a conscious patriotism generally, maybe because we didn't have a single threatening superpower like the Soviet Union on the horizon. But after September 11th and since then, there has been a renewal in the open expression of patriotism and in the values that we hope are associated with this country.

In what ways were the childhoods of your four children different from your own? What were the earliest lessons you tried to teach them?

The one thing I wanted to give my children was a single place that they could call home, something I never had. It didn't work out completely, but in some ways they have had the best of what I experienced and what I am dreamed of having. They have traveled, as I did, but they have real roots in a place, too.

The earliest lessons have to be the simplest: honesty, responsibility, respect for others. In truth, I think you have a lot of responsibilities as a parent. You need to teach your children cleanliness and manners and a work ethic and real ethics. You need to teach them how to make dinner for themselves and how to study for a test and a thousand other things, big and small. But none of this matters if you don't also give them wings. You never know how well you did at parenting until they leave. As hard as it is to see them go, the job is not complete until they are able to fly for themselves. So I have spent a lot of time urging all four of my children to try new things, to meet new people, to step up on their own.

Having been raised in a military family, you came to know about this particular kind of community and the untold ways its members support one another. What should civilians (whether they are political leaders or not) do to "return the favor" for the tremendous sacrifices made by soldiers and their families?

There are lots of ways in which we could show our appreciation to military men and women and their families, starting with the incredibly simple act of saying "thank you" when you cross their paths. I am always heartened when I see signs in stores that give discounts to people with military ID cards - which happens a lot in North Carolina where we are blessed with lots of bases. If you live near a base where there are a lot of deployments, you could reach out to the family support centers on those bases and see if there are ways to help.

I admit that I have been disappointed for some time by our governmental stinginess with the military, the military family, the veteran, and the veteran's family. It would be great if all the civilians spoke up - it is hard for active duty military men and women to do so - for pay increases (so that some military families don't qualify for food stamps), for better medical care even if the military family is not near a base and better care for all veterans, for more retirement support for widows and widowers. These issues come up in Congress all the time, but until they understand that all their constituents, not just those in the military, care, Congress will not give these issues the priority they deserve.

Was it difficult for you to make the transition from your legal career to motherhood? What advice do you have for working women who are about to become mothers?

Once I went to an ethics seminar. All North Carolina lawyers, probably lawyers everywhere, have to take a certain number of continuing legal education course in ethics. (I admit I always assumed that unethical lawyers, like unethical professions everywhere, knew what was ethical and what was not, but chose to act unethically. So I wasn't sure what the purpose was, but I went anyway.) At this seminar, a young woman lawyer contemplating having children asked me about balancing, and I told her what I did: I decided which job, mothering or lawyering, was the priority - mothering won - and from that point on balancing was easy. When I was doing it day to day, which I did at first, it was very difficult; I could make the argument for why this school recital was important and why this contract was important. I made decisions that allowed me to work: my children attended the YMCA after-school program, for example, but when there was a teacher workday or some other conflict with work, mothering won out.

You described how hard it was for you to write the passages about Wade's death. How did you get through this part of your book project? What did you most want your readers to know about him?

Writing about Wade, like thinking about him, is both hard and wonderful. It was hard to revisit the things I wrote at the time he died because I was so raw then and the writings reflect that. As for what I wanted the reader to know about Wade, I knew first that they would not trust what a mother had to say, but I was lucky. Alise Tharpe had gone to school with Wade, and she described him in a letter she gave me which she allowed me to include in the book. Her description of a sweet, fun, and monumentally thoughtful boy will, I hope, convince the reader about Wade in a way my words never could.

Copyright © 2006 by Elizabeth Edwards. Excerpted by permission of Broadway, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

About the Author

Elizabeth Edwards, a lawyer, has worked for the North Carolina Attorney General's office and at the law firm Merriman, Nichols, and Crampton in Raleigh, and she has also taught legal writing as an adjunct instructor at the law school of North Carolina University. She lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.