I'm Really Trying to Get It

This John Edwards thing has got me really puzzled.

One part of me really understands that every relationship, every marriage, is a complex web that is woven over time. The foundation you build, the habits you create, the words that you use....it's as personal as it gets. And really, who am I to question what happens in someone else's home? The privacy of someone else's kitchen table, when secrets are revealed and foundations crack and hope seeps out like a leaking faucet that no one can repair.

The truth for me, is that I know good people can do really horrible things. Good people with good hearts and good souls and all the best intentions sometimes really screw up, and sometimes with horrific consequences. The Edwards family is different from many families in that they have a public life, and therefore public highs and public lows. Can you imagine what this family is going through right now? If your father cheated on your mother and you knew about it, you had the choice to tell a friend, a neighbor, an aunt. Everyone knows their very personal business. Everyone knows that Daddy had a dalliance with some woman and it's plastered across every media outlet you can name. Everyone knows that he did it when your mother was going through chemotherapy.

Can you imagine John Edwards' pain? Can you imagine how he felt watching his vibrant wife, full of love and spirit, start to drift away before his eyes? Did he feel powerless? Was he so surrounded by the thoughts of her being taken from him that he just had to find some way to feel good again?

Did he just want to be around someone with full red cheeks and vigor and life?

Perhaps the pallor of cancer was too much for him to bear. Perhaps he's always been an adulterer. Perhaps he had the audacity to think that he wouldn't get caught.

I'm trying, you see...to really make this make sense in my mind. These are people who buried their first child together. Who raised a family together. Who built businesses and campaigns and still managed to stay happy and connected. It seems. How can this happen? How did this foundation crack? How did he do this?

There is a part of me, down under some layers, that just hates this guy. How dare he. Did he think the public was that stupid? He lied, over and over again. Did that make it better for her? For the kids? How does he explain it to them? Remember when she was diagnosed? Remember how he came back on the campaign trail because he publicly said that Elizabeth wanted him to? She didn't want him to abandon his dream? Did you kind of think he sucked a little then?

I did.

Good for you. Forge ahead. Leave your wife for weeks at a time. And while you're at it, sleep with some woman. A woman who you'll later say, brazenly, that you don't love. Is that supposed to be a relief for your wife? Your best friend? Your rock?

And now there is Elizabeth. A woman struggling to stay healthy. To stay bright and positive for her children who are watching their world slip away. To remind them that their father loves them very much, no matter what. Can you imagine having to tell your children how wonderful their father is after this? But I bet she does. She will keep her head low, I bet. She'll take care of those kids and hope that when the dust settles, she can start to rebuild her life, her foundation...perhaps next time with new bricks and mortar.