It takes a lot to get someone like me to stop and read an email from the many mailing lists I'm on. Even if the subject line is interesting, my work moves at broadband speed and I usually just don't have the time. But today, for the first time in a long time, I read an email from beginning to end. It was an email from Elizabeth Edwards expressing her support for Cindy Sheehan and her efforts to meet with President Bush in Texas.
What was remarkable about it was the fact that Mrs. Edwards drew parallels to her own son, Wade, who died in a car accident on April 4, 1996 -- exactly eight years earlier than Casey Sheehan, who died on April 4, 2004. As someone who followed the 2004 presidential election closely, I know that the Edwards family are intensely private about Wade, his death and their grief. I saw John Edwards on more than one occasion decline to discuss his son in interviews in 2004, so this email really made me stop what I was doing and read.
Elizabeth was incredibly sincere and open as she talked about her son and she made Casey real for me in a way that hasn't happened in the last few weeks Cindy has been in Crawford. There is a lot of significance in one mother putting aside her own need to grieve privately for her son in order to bring attention to another mother's very public expression of grief for hers. I signed the petition provided at the end of the email, and I hope many others do as well.
