Health Spectator

This was not supposed to be the debut of Health Spectator. We had thought we’d make our entre with a well-researched update on antioxidants or perhaps an introductory lesson on the complexities of the immune system. Once our piece was researched and written, it might have taken another month or so for the design ideas to be finalized (we think a good first impression is important) had we stuck to the original plan.

But about a week after the news of Elizabeth Edwards’ cancer relapse, we realized this was something we couldn’t let pass. Although we have never med the Edwards personally, we did come surprising close, and while this is not intended to be a “personal” weblog in the sense that you need not expect to read about our lives in it routinely, since our rush to print is provoked entirely by a personal reaction, perhaps it would be prudent to explain.

We lived in Raleigh, North Carolina for about ten years, and were fortunate to have as a next-door neighbor for several of those years Betsy (Elizabeth) Brennan. Betsy was the widow of a prominent local developer and was herself immersed in the local arts, acting as an art agent and hosting occasional art shows in her home. She also was involved to some degree in local politics.

One day Betsy invited us to a dinner party she was planning for a local man she knew who was going to run for the Senate. I wasn’t paying close attention and assumed she was talking about the state senate, but since I was recently unemployed, I really wasn’t in the mood for socializing at a dinner party anyway and declined, despite Betsy’s repeated pleas. The guest of honor also happened to be our backyard neighbor, whom we had never met. Their daughter attended high school with my wife’s son. The night of the dinner party, my wife and I occasionally listened to the subdued merriment from our back porch, but we just didn’t feel up to joining in.

You guessed it. Our neighbor was John Edwards, who ran successfully for the U.S. Senate, achieved national prominence as a presidential candidate having started as an unknown, then nearly became the 47th vice president of the United States.

Shortly after his election, Senator Edwards and his family moved to another section of town, having stayed in the neighborhood until their daughter graduated from the local high school, I believe, and we never met.

I’m sure you all have similar stories of nearly meeting people who soon became nationally prominent, but that is not really the point of this story.

A few years later, my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. As a matter of fact, we received the diagnosis the morning of September 11, 2001, around 8 am. We had stopped to pay for parking in the lot of the University of North Carolina cancer center, and as the guard raised the gate to let us exit, President Bush came on the radio to announce that the first jet had struck the World Trade Center. My wife and I rushed to downtown Chapel Hill for breakfast and arrived in time to see the second jet strike, then watched in horror as the towers collapsed.

It was the kind of morning you don’t soon forget.

[to be continued]