by Lia Hempel
Editors note: Elizabeth Edwards died last week, and the encomiums were as quick to come as they were well-earned. However, here’s another response to her death. To say that the writer felt deeply is an understatement. And you–how do you feel about it?
I find you despicable, Lisa Jo Druck.
That’s right, that’s your real name. Recognize it? Yes, I’m sure you do, but you don’t answer to it any longer. It’s a name you shoved in a drawer, closed it off to the light, so you can see yourself in a new light, Rielle Hunter. The limelight, the beaming light from cosmic forces that pulled you and John Edwards together. Wake up, honey, that beam of light is really the flashlight of a worn-out cop beaming in on you, sweaty, grinding up and down, unflatteringly white in the backseat of a car.
Uncharacteristic of the news media, as if they suddenly developed tact, the talking heads who provided details of the death of Elizabeth Edwards on December 7 stayed away from mentioning your name. Instead, they focused on pictures of Elizabeth and her children and the wannabe President bobble head. Also uncharacteristic of the media is that they did not try to sanctify Elizabeth Edwards, and neither do I, nor many others.
Whatever has been said, flattering or unflattering about Elizabeth Edwards, she was a woman who like many of us have flattering and unflattering sides. That equation equals human. Unlike you, Lisa Jo, most women, upon meeting the husband of a woman who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer would not choose to meet him that very night, in his room, at the Regency Hotel in Manhattan. Whatever the cosmic attraction may have been, most women would leave it to a simple flirtatious attraction, perhaps shake his hand, and wish him and his wife well. But not you. You instead shook something else that night.
Neither is this an exoneration of John Edwards. He broke his marriage vows; sullied the memory of his young son; shattered a family and the trust of his remaining children. He did not protect his family nor his wife at the second most tragic and vulnerable time of their lives. He hid between your legs.
I can understand affairs and why people enter into them knowing that someone may be hurt in the process. But, entering into an affair when one party is already tragically hurting? Despicable.
What will you tell your child? How will you shield her from the truth? Will you tell her “Mommy made a mistake”? I bet you would.
Photo credit: hiscrivener.wordpress.com
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