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Resilience: The New Afterword

3.44 of 5 stars 3.44 · rating details · 1,403 ratings · 374 reviews

The bestselling author of Saving Graces shares her inspirational message on the challenges and blessings of coping with adversity.

She’s one of the most beloved political figures in the country, and on the surface, seems to have led a charmed life. In many ways, she has. Beautiful family. Thriving career. Supportive friendship. Loving marriage. But she’s no stranger to adve...more

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Published (first published May 8th 2009)

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Jun 10, 2009 Candis rated it 2 of 5 stars

I didn't care for this book. Resilience doesn't seem like the correct title, Perseverance maybe, but not Resilience. She moves from one sense of loss to another and reveals how she coped with each trauma, but it just sounds like coping, not overcoming, which is what Resilience implies. It ends rather abruptly with no sense of closure. This book is really I think a documentation of the author's disappointment in the hand life has dealt her. It's a fast read and I gained insight into an interestin...more

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Jan 10, 2011 Sue Reed rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was a good read!!!! Elizabeth Edwards was a very strong lady who had to deal with a lot of junk in her life. I enjoyed reading about her family, her relationship with her parents and even cried when I read the chapters about her son Wade. The thing I liked most about this book was that it was not about the scandal of her marriage...it was about her life and her fights. Elizabeth spent so much of her life focusing on the positives of everything and always putting her children first...she was...more

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Jan 11, 2013 Colleen Flannery rated it 2 of 5 stars

Like so many other reviews, mine starts out "i so wanted to like this book...." I wanted to see how this public figure handled her bouts with cancer, how her celebrity, devotion, faith, clout, whatever might make her journey singular and inspirational. We rarely saw Elizabeth angry. We all stood in awe of this woman who took her cancer public and pressed on with the campaigns. What i found was a woman who was so broken by her teenage son's death that she never learned to function, to cope. She j...more

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Sep 20, 2012 Abbe added it · review of another edition

Shelves: in-library

EDITORIAL REVIEW: **The bestselling author of *Saving Graces* shares her inspirational message on the challenges and blessings of coping with adversity.**She’s one of the most beloved political figures in the country, and on the surface, seems to have led a charmed life. In many ways, she has. Beautiful family. Thriving career. Supportive friendship. Loving marriage. But she’s no stranger to adversity. Many know of the strength she had shown after her son, Wade, was killed in a freak car acciden...more

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Dec 10, 2011 Ruth Sims rated it 5 of 5 stars

I wonder if reaction to this book might have something to do with the reader's age and life experience. I thought it was a remarkable book because of its honesty and the willingness of Elizabeth Edwards to share, without self pity, heartbreak that would have destroyed many, if not most, of us. The death of a child would be enough by itself to destroy a person. A cancer diagnosis alone would be enough. The confession of a beloved husband/ best friend/rock that he he'd had a one-night-stand and th...more I wonder if reaction to this book might have something to do with the reader's age and life experience. I thought it was a remarkable book because of its honesty and the willingness of Elizabeth Edwards to share, without self pity, heartbreak that would have destroyed many, if not most, of us. The death of a child would be enough by itself to destroy a person. A cancer diagnosis alone would be enough. The confession of a beloved husband/ best friend/rock that he he'd had a one-night-stand and the public humiliation it brought with it. would be enough. Cancer treatments would be enough. A new diagnosis of cancer's return and spreading and the death sentence it meant, would be enough. Knowing you would not see your two young children grow up, would be enough. Seeing your own mother's descent into mental vacuity, would be enough. Ongoing new cancer treatments even knowing there is little if any hope that they'll work, would be enough. And then, when you know you are facing your last battle, when you have little time left and little left to fight with, you are hit with the knowledge that the "one night stand" was more than that, that it was an affair, that there was a child born to the other woman, followed by the public humiliation and sniggering, ultimate sense of betrayal... it is time to say, "Enough. No more."

I never got a sense of bitterness, except near the end, directed toward the woman who deliberately intruded into their life and, when John's complete betrayal was revealed, toward this man who had betrayed her and then lied about it. If every any woman was entitled to anger and bitterness it was Elizabeth Edwards. Yet she somehow seemed to keep herself from descending into hatred.I'm not sure I could have done that.

Elizabeth Edwards took the nettles of her life in her hands and tried not to flinch. She did not always succeed. She never pretends to sainthood. She admits often, in these pages, to being flawed, to being less than people thought. Throughout, she displays nothing but quiet courage and suffering, and bewilderment that her life should have turned out so different than it was expected to, bewilderment that God seemed to let things happen to someone who played by the rules, who lived the best life she could. She simply grasped the nettles harder and pressed on to her sad, heartbreaking end.

If any novelist wrote her life as a plot, not one would publish it because it would be just too unbelievable, too soap-opera-ish. But it was true. Elizabeth Edwards lived it. And died it.

I thought the poetry and song excerpts she quoted were perfect for the context, for the situation, for her state of mind. I think it's amazing that she could think clearly enough to write it, suffering as she was through the cancer treatments and the devastation of her heart. She wasn't putting in poetry to appeal to a faceless reader. She put in the words, lines, verses, that had meaning for her, and that she drew strength from. God knows how and where she found strength at all. I would not have.

I have not lost a child. But at 72 I have lost most of my family and several friends. I am well acquainted with grief. In 1964, within two weeks, I lost my mother to cancer and an older sister who was like an auxiliary mother. My sister was killed in a head-on car crash on a day like the one on which Wade Edwards was killed, in an accident much like his. Though I could not feel completely her grief at Wade's death, I could feel much of it. I know how it changes your life and forces you into a new reality. I, too, found comfort and still do all these years later, in homely poetry and songs and my remaining family. And, yes, it is a new reality and every new loss forces your to create yet another new reality.

It's not an easy book to read. I cried most of the way through it. I felt I knew her.

I wish I had.(less)

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Jul 11, 2011 Rachel rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir, non-fiction

I so wanted to like this book more. I admired Elizabeth Edwards a lot, but this book gives you insight only into her response to the loss of her oldest son. She sometimes writes well, sometimes sloppily. She quotes from others too much for such a short book. I think that my biggest problem is that after almost 100 pages about dealing with the loss of a child, 50 pages about dealing with breast cancer, she doesn't really address her husband's infidelity and how she dealt with that. She calls it a...more

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Apr 23, 2011 Rosemarie rated it 3 of 5 stars

The majority of the book (3/4) is about the death of her son Wade, with a chapter or two about breast cancer and several paragraphs about her husband's infidelity. Personally, the book is not very organized in writing and just ebbs and flows at best, quite choppy at worst. Sadly, some of the poetry utilized does not do service to illustrate to the reader her emotions.

I do agree that Perseverance would have served as a better title. Ms. Edwards was indeed re-processing her grief in writing about...more

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Aug 16, 2010 Deirdre Keating rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir

I consider myself one of this book's least likely readers; while I love memoirs, political ones are usually inauthentic and ghost-written, and I never could stand John Edwards. Even though his political positions were probably closer to mine than other politicians, he always came off as a snake-oil-salesman to me. I still remember cringing during most of his VP debate against Cheney. Unsurprisingly, I find him even less appealing now.

But my mom's recent bad news had me searching our library for...more I consider myself one of this book's least likely readers; while I love memoirs, political ones are usually inauthentic and ghost-written, and I never could stand John Edwards. Even though his political positions were probably closer to mine than other politicians, he always came off as a snake-oil-salesman to me. I still remember cringing during most of his VP debate against Cheney. Unsurprisingly, I find him even less appealing now.

But my mom's recent bad news had me searching our library for books on met bc, and this book popped up. I wanted to know the specifics of her treatment and how she's managed to fight it for so long.

I found her engaging, honest, and generous. And I believe she really did write it. She talks a great deal about growing up in Japan, with a Navy officer father, and the soundtrack of her childhood that became the soundtrack of her family's home. So many of the songs, as well as the poems she quotes, are among my mother's favorites.

I read it in one day, completely drained from crying while reading it by the end. She is eloquent and insightful while writing about how she needed to grieve the loss of her young son. I can't believe anyone would judge someone else's path to acceptance/grief, but there is an abundance of it here in the comments (maybe that's why I'm compelled to write so much...).

Not that I've reached a holy state of non-judgment---I always find it unsurprising but annoying when rich people believe that their wealth is a sign of God's favor (or the universe's, etc). But I admire that EE was so honest in describing her faith or view of the world prior to her incredible loss, and her own assessment that, after witnessing the pain of so many innocent people, it never made sense that she believed it, but she did.

I believe the book does a great job of sharing her path through grief, and even more so through the disillusionment that her life would be so very different from the perfect-picture one she imagined. Perhaps she wrote so little about her living children in an effort to respect their privacy; since they are still alive, their stories are still their own to tell. But I wish she had been able to write more and as well about what remains behind, about the beauty she discovered after the veil of entitlement or impunity from life's sorrows was lifted. Perhaps that is asking too much.

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Dec 12, 2009 Camzcam rated it 2 of 5 stars

I think a better title for this book might be, "Bitterness." I wanted to like this book, because I really like Elizabeth Edwards, but unfortunately it failed for me on many levels.

This is the second book authored by John Edwards' outspoken and self-effacing wife. In this book she catalogues the tragedies and disappointments she has suffered as an adult and how she hopes she has "risen above" them. To be fair...she has walked a challenging road. 1-Her active and healthy father suffered a stroke t...more I think a better title for this book might be, "Bitterness." I wanted to like this book, because I really like Elizabeth Edwards, but unfortunately it failed for me on many levels.

This is the second book authored by John Edwards' outspoken and self-effacing wife. In this book she catalogues the tragedies and disappointments she has suffered as an adult and how she hopes she has "risen above" them. To be fair...she has walked a challenging road. 1-Her active and healthy father suffered a stroke that the doctor told her had left him brain-dead. Through Elizabeth's intuition and strong will, they found another doctor, and her father went on to live for 13 more years...as an active, articulate, member of society...he even eventually was able to drive again! 2-Her gifted and beloved 16-year-old son, Wade was killed in a freak car accident. 3-At 40, she decided to have two more children. 4-Her husband ran as Vice-Presdient with John Kerry as president (perhaps you all remember how that turned out.) 5-Just days before the Kerry/Edwards election, she discovered she had breast cancer. She went through serious cancer treatment and the cancer went into remission. 6-In just another 3 years, the cancer returned and metastasized in her bones...a terminal diagnosis. 7-Despite the diagnosis, her husband decided to run for the Democratic Party nomination for President. 8-Just days after entering the race, John confessed to an affair. He told her for a year that it was a one-night lapse in judgment, only to later confess that it had been much more than that.

Now although, I feel compassion for Edwards, I did not really enjoy the book. 1-The writing is unimpressive...she is, after all, an attorney, so I had higher expectations. It is blah, predictable, REPETITIVE, and relies heavily on pop-song lyrics and popular culture references. 2-For the most part, as she explains how she has overcome trials, it doesn't seem like she has moved past them at all. It doesn't speak to "resilience" to me when she seems to be clinging so strongly to the past. For me, the best part of the book was when she talks about a young Japanese woman she met as a child when she was living abroad with her military father. This woman had trained to be a geisha, and then was permanently disfigured in Hiroshima. As a result, she was only left with her geisha training to eventually teach her instrument and dancing skills to the children of American soldiers living in her country. This is a small several paragraph anecdote that showed what true resilience is. Too bad Edwards didn't take it more to heart. 3-She says this book is for her children...I can't imagine in any way how this book could possibly serve them. 4-Fortunately, the "affair" is actually only a tiny little portion of the book...she does not delve into details for which I am glad. However, I HATE the word "indiscretion" and she splatters that word freely all over the pages. What a euphemism! To me, an "indiscretion" is when someone tells an off-color joke. Adultery is not an indiscretion.

Ultimately, I don't think I would recommend this book to anyone. It's too bad...I always found her a refreshing public figure.(less)

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Nov 18, 2009 Sara rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2009, memoir, non-fiction

This memoir is pitched as "inspirational," and while I don't exactly agree with that description, I do think that the sentiments in this book were uplifting. Obviously, Elizabeth Edwards has gone through a lot - her son's death, her cancer diagnosis, her husband's affair - and she details how she coped with these things in this book. It was definitely not a tell-all book, with no sordid details of anything, but she did a wonderful job telling her story and conveying her emotional journey through...more

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Nov 06, 2009 Heather rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biography

Yesterday, I found out that one of my dearest loved ones--who has battled one form of cancer for over a decade, and another form for the past several months--has zero to ten years to live. Feeling quite devastated, I searched online for books on coping with cancer. This book was near the top of the search results list; from its description, it seemed to be just what I needed. Since the library was already closed, my husband went to the bookstore and bought a copy for me. I started it last night...more

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Oct 03, 2009 Mazola1 rated it 3 of 5 stars

It is said that a grieving woman once came to the Buddha carrying her dead child. She had been wandering the streets for days with the child's body, unable to put it down. Asked to restore the child to life, the Buddha told the woman that she must first bring him a grain of rice from a house that had known no loss. The woman searched in vain for such a house and finally realized the lesson the Buddha was trying to teach: that she must put down the child's body. This story is, of course, a story...more It is said that a grieving woman once came to the Buddha carrying her dead child. She had been wandering the streets for days with the child's body, unable to put it down. Asked to restore the child to life, the Buddha told the woman that she must first bring him a grain of rice from a house that had known no loss. The woman searched in vain for such a house and finally realized the lesson the Buddha was trying to teach: that she must put down the child's body. This story is, of course, a story about the hardest problem humans confront, how to deal with loss.

In a sense, Elizabeth Edwards' book Resilience is about that same problem and her struggle to learn the Buddha's lesson. Edwards writes about three great losses in her life, the death of her son Wade, her diagnosis of incurable breast cancer and her husband's very public and very humiliating infidelity. These are the kind of events that we all will suffer and which change our lives forever, and divide our lives into before and after. When they happen, we wish that life would return, as before. But, as Edwards writes, "'Before' is gone forever." When that happens, she says, "the only way to find peace, the only way to be resilient when these landmines explode beneath your foundation, is first to accept that there is a new reality." Our old lives no longer exist, and "the more we cling to the hope that these old lives might come back, the more we set ourselves up for unending discontent."

Edwards' book has a raw honesty as she describes her grief over her son's death, and her struggle to come to terms with it. Regret and bitterness mark her description of her reactions to her cancer and her husband's infidelity. In this, she shows herself to be very human. One gets the sense that like the woman in the Buddha's tale, she spent too much time carrying the dead body of her child around, too much time wishing things would have turned out differently, too much time regretting the loss of her old life.

Perhaps that's why Resilience isn't really an inspiring book, although some have found it to be so. I would call it instead a wise and thoughtful book. It's the story of making difficult adjustments in response to difficult problems, or as Edwards puts it, standing in the storm and when the wind doesn't blow your way, adjusting your sails. That's a lesson we would all be the better for learning. Elizabeth Edwards' book which tells the story of how she learned that lesson, may help others to chart their own way through stormy weather when it blows their way. Which makes it a book worth reading and thinking about.

(less)

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Sep 27, 2009 Denise rated it 3 of 5 stars

I had no idea she spent a good chunk of her childhood in Japan. It was interesting to hear her talk about the military bases that I visit quite often. I hate her husband, but she has lived a great life worth celebrating. I’ve grown to respect her, which means a lot.

Lines that I loved:

I suppose that in real life, we have to distinguish between those catastrophes we can repair and those that require us to face a new reality.

We stand a little straighter in his shadow.

The fall is much farther if you...more

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Jul 25, 2009 Kathleen Hagen added it

Shelves: 2009-audio-books, 2009-nonfiction

Resilience: Reflections on the Burdens and Gifts of Facing Life's Adversities, by Elizabeth Edwards, narrated by the author, Produced by Random House Audio, downloaded from audible.com.

Elizabeth Edwards is a beloved political figure. She is not the best narrator of her own books. I think she becomes emotionally charged in reading what she wrote. Her voice gets very small and tense and sometimes she is almost whispering her words. It makes it more difficult to listen to her. But the message she g...more

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Jul 07, 2009 Katie Tatton rated it 3 of 5 stars

I had read Elizabeth Edwards' first book Saving Graces: Finding Solace and Strength from Friends and Strangers a few years ago and liked it very much, so I was anxious to read Resilience, especially after hearing an NPR interview in which Edwards said:

"I think that resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it's less good than the one you had, the reality that you liked before."

Edwards has certainly had more than her fair share of new realities that frankly sucked. Her son's death, the...more

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Jun 24, 2009 Rhonda rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2009

Elizabeth Edwards writes how she is coping with three major events in her life---the death of her son, Wade, her breast cancer, and her husband's infidelity. She really shares her deepest feelings, how she is getting through life...

Quotes:

"Each time I fell into a chasm...........I had to accept that the planet had taken a few turns and I could not turn it back. My life was and would always be different, and it would be less than I hoped it would be. Each time, there was a new life, a new story....more

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Jun 23, 2009 Shirleen rated it 4 of 5 stars

How do you cope with a teenage son's sudden death in a car accident? What do you do to make the hurt disappear? How do you carry on in your life? How do you forgive a husband for his affair with another woman?

I found Elizabeth Edwards' personal story honest and both uplifting and heartbreaking. She reflects on adversities that she has faced in her life and how she is coping with them - a teenage son's death, breast cancer, recurrence of her cancer, her father's death, and her husband's indiscret...more

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May 11, 2009 Catherine rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009, mainstream-us

Having seen Oprah's interview with Elizabeth Edwards on May 7th, I was eager to buy and read this book. The interview was open, honest, and engaging - Edwards communicated a tremendous sense of self that had been won at enormous cost. I wondered at the time how much of that was down to Winfrey's talent as an interviewer - the questions were forthright, and her demeanor calm, compassionate, but completely unwavering; this was a place where Truth was going to be spoken.

And I guess I now have my an...more Having seen Oprah's interview with Elizabeth Edwards on May 7th, I was eager to buy and read this book. The interview was open, honest, and engaging - Edwards communicated a tremendous sense of self that had been won at enormous cost. I wondered at the time how much of that was down to Winfrey's talent as an interviewer - the questions were forthright, and her demeanor calm, compassionate, but completely unwavering; this was a place where Truth was going to be spoken.

And I guess I now have my answer - I have to give the greater share of credit to Winfrey rather than Edwards. Resilience is a slim volume, both in pages (214 - I read it in a couple of hours, while making dinner) and in substance. There are frequent repetitions of not just subject but word choice, entire paragraphs replicated in chapter after chapter. Thoughts are expressed one way, and then expressed again in another - there is material here for perhaps one book of 100 pages - there is so much that could be omitted without changing the book's core.

The core of the book is also not what many might expect - it's not about John, or his affair, but about the loss of their son Wade. I can absolutely see how the loss of a child is more important than a marital indiscretion, and I read this to understand Edwards herself, not for the sordid details of what happened in motels. But the narrative arc of the story of losing Wade seems tilted not toward understanding those years as the sum of their own parts, but rather as a precursor to this other marital challenge. Perhaps that's how they feel to Edwards - a string of tragedies that run one into another - but if so, there is perhaps a better way to tell this story, to tease out that impulse in the introduction so that it's clear that will be the drive of the story going forward. As it was I simply felt uncomfortable, perching on the edge of each vignette, waiting for the unavoidable ending already played out in the public eye. An odd little book, all in all. (less)

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Aug 26, 2009 Lisa rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: reviewed-books

Elizabeth Edwards has a nice writing style, but I could not get past my impatience with her message. She tells the story of how her life was perfect, her children were perfect, SHE was perfect and then it all came crashing down. Yes, she acknowledges that her privileged worldview was a lie, but I get the strong feeling that she hasn’t really gotten over the idea that she is/was entitled to this ‘perfect’ life. She dwells incessantly on the idea that she did not deserve her misfortunes. There are...more

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May 11, 2009 Faye rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a heartbreakingly sad book. For most of the book, she deals with the loss of her son. That same year, she lost her father. She was diagnosed with cancer. Then years later, the cancer returns and her husband has his infamous affair. She knows she is dying and is married to a man she doesn't know anymore. She does do a fine job communicating raw pain. Most of the book is well-written. There were passages that were excessively redundant but they were few. I like her honesty and her lack of...more

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Dec 17, 2010 Kassel rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010

I don't know that anyone who hasn't dealt with death in a very personal way would appreciate the raw emotion in this book. Elizabeth laid her soul bare and was more than kind to her husband John in referring to his affairs as "indiscretions" so I don't understand how people can bash her as bitter. Her words inspired me as did the courage she showed in the face of her son's death and the diagnosis of incurable cancer. People looking for her talking about how she dealt with her husband's affair wi...more

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Sep 19, 2009 Amy Hillis rated it 2 of 5 stars

Final review - eh.

Methinks Elizabeth Edwards isn't over all her drama, yet. She reads as a woman trying to write like she's open-minded and progressive, but is really bitter. Every time she gets to a "good part" of the story....something juicy or interesting....she either chastises the reader saying things like, "if you expected to come here and find out details of his infidelity, you are crass" or she throws in a poem.

And her choices in poetry aren't that profound. I'm just saying.

While I didn'...more

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Jan 16, 2012 Nicholas Montemarano rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

See my previous review of Andrew Young's THE POLITICIAN, which includes some thoughts about this book by Edwards.

Here, let me say that some parts -- about the death of her son, Wade, about living with terminal cancer, and about coping with her husband's infidelity -- are very moving.

She writes: "When my son Wade died, I spent so many days or weeks or months trying to find a way to make it not so, to have him live. The American poet Edna St. Vincent Millay writes of this desire in her lovely poem...more

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Jul 13, 2009 Robin Rountree rated it 3 of 5 stars

I came away with some insight in to how to deal with the tragedies that life can bring you, but it wasn't an easy read.

Really, the crux of this book is Elizabeth dealing with the sudden death of her son, Wade. They say the death of a child is the hardest thing to go through, and based on her account, I'd have to agree. She is kind to the reader in making it clear that this was her journey through the grief, and everyone deals with tragedy differently.

I almost gave up on the book, but then I ende...more

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Jan 23, 2011 Tom Franklin rated it 4 of 5 stars

"Resilience" was Elizabeth Edwards second book, written after her husband (former Senator John Edwards) admitted to having and affair with another woman and the resurgence of her cancer that brought with it the diagnosis that it was terminal.

On the back cover Edwards states she doesn't have the answers on how to avoid conflicts and the unsettling moments in life. She'd lived through some horrible moments and all she could do was to tell how she had managed to get through those times.

Where "Savi...more

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Jul 31, 2010 SmarterLilac rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a very curious book. I like Elizabeth Edwards, but I found her insights here to be a bit...opaque. The objective of this book is unclear to me. Also, maybe I need to read it again, but I'd like to know more about why she finally chose to end her marriage to John Edwards. If it wasn't, as she suggested in the Larry King interview, as a result of the affair or the child it created, what was it? I missed that detail, if she gave it in the book.

On the plus side, this books delves into a topi...more

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Oct 27, 2011 Novella rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I appreciated the opportunity to "get to know" Eliabeth Edwards a bit better through this book. She seems like someone I would have enjoyed a friendship with given her dedication to family as a first priority. We have that in common. She is real and tells her story which, at times, is heart-wrenching. The book is written in a scattered way often with lists of memories, events, people who I am unsure as to their identities. The writing isn't chronological or organized which is where I struggled....more

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Dec 25, 2010 Melissa rated it 5 of 5 stars

I may not have had the best choice of timing as far as when I chose to read this book, since I am in the middle of chemotherapy for breast cancer, and I actually had to put it down the first time I started reading it a couple of weeks ago. It was just too much for where I was emotionally at that time. But I picked it back up a couple of days ago and read through it really fast.

I thought Edwards was very open, and did a great job of describing her emotions through some terrible times. I was incr...more

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Sep 19, 2009 Stephanie rated it 4 of 5 stars

I read this because it was my local library book club. I was nervous it was going to be a caddy book about the John Edwards affair and all of her excuses for why she stayed with him. I found, however, a very interesting reflection about God, trials, and life. She rambles a lot, but I think that for someone who loses a child and tries to explain your feelings, words are hard. So she rambles for a few chapters. I don't agree with her faith. Her conclusion after her struggles is that there is reall...more

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Jun 24, 2009 Mlg rated it 4 of 5 stars

A poignant book about facing life's adversities, Elizabeth Edwards takes the reader along with her as she searches for answers and in the end, finds them only within herself. She has had to endure the death of a child, terminal cancer, the loss of her father and her mother's senility, and now the loss of trust in a spouse. There's a great quote on the last page that I like: "The modern hero is a person who does something everyone thinks they could do if they were a little stronger, a little fas...more

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