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in my life, but because everywhere I go, people smile back at me. I am stronger because John Moylan and Ed Smith give me a hug when they see me, but I am also stronger because Edward the mailman smiles, and Sam the bagger at the grocery store smiles. So what this book is, after all, is a shout from up on the tightrope: thank you all. Like the letter my father received forty years later from the crewman aboard the Mercator he flew safely home over the Sea of Japan. I’ve had a good life, and I just want to thank you for it.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The note I wrote to Wade that I placed in his casket said only You know. And it is the note I send to each of you who helped me and touched me and laughed with me or cried, who climbed or fell with me. You know. The great impossibility of this book has been that I cannot stop thinking of each of you and how much you have meant to me, and how much this life—and certainly this book—would not have been possible without you. It was hard in the writing not to include every one of you and nearly impossible here not to thank you, each of you. But I will reluctantly conform to convention and thank by name those who have made the actual writing of this book possible.

I came to this process a neophyte and was fortunate to find just the professional guidance I needed from Bob Barnett, who placed me in the hands of Doubleday Broadway and an editor, Stacy Creamer, who believed in me and in this story and made the experience as easy as an editor possibly could. This book is clearly better because Stacy read it before you did. And I was lucky that Stacy had such an incredible supporting cast, David Drake and Laura Swerdloff, in particular. I was fortunate in the first days to have the skill and vision of Aimee Molloy and throughout to have the wisdom and kindness of my longtime friend John Auchard, both of whom helped me find a shape for the book. I pressed into service those to whom I so often have turned in the past: Brad Anderson, Alexis Bar, Jan Bolinger, Saundra Daddio, Guy Decker, John Dervin, Dan Doherty, Karen Finney, Randy Galvin, David Ginsberg, Martha Hartmann-Harlan, Eileen Kotecki, Miles Lackey, Hargrave McElroy, Kathleen McGlynn, Ryan Montoya, Sam Myers, Jennifer Palmieri, Jonathan Prince, Christina Reynolds, Kim Rubey, John Schoo, Meghan Scott, Gayle Steele, and Colin van Ostern. They have never once let me down.

There were some without whom this book might never have been written for they made the physical pulling of the pieces together possible, including Heather North, Lisa Carey, Andrew Young, Martina Young, Lori Krause, and Matthew Nelson. There are those, too, whose constant support and love made these pages better, including Glenn Bergenfield and Sally Plyler.

And my family. When I bare my life, I know I bare theirs, too. They haven't just been gracious about that, they have been my best cheerleaders and my most honest critics. My thanks and my love to my brother Jay and my sister Nancy, to Mom and Dad, to my beloved John and my precious Cate. This is your book, too. You know.

PUBLISHED BY BROADWAY BOOKS

Copyright © 2006 by Elizabeth Edwards

All Rights Reserved

Published in the United States by Broadway Books, an imprint of The Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

www.broadwaybooks.com

BROADWAY BOOKS and its logo, a letter B bisected on the diagonal, are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Edwards, Elizabeth, 1949–

Saving graces : finding solace and strength from friends and strangers / Elizabeth Edwards.—1st ed.

p. cm.

1. Edwards, Elizabeth, 1949– 2. Edwards, Elizabeth, 1949– —Philosophy. 3. Legislators’ spouses—United States—Biography. 4. Cancer—Patients—United States—Biography. 5. Lawyers’ spouses—North Carolina—Biography. 6. Edwards, John, 1953 June 10– 7. Edwards, John, 1953 June 10– —Family. 8. North Carolina—Biography. I. Title.

E840.8.E29E24 2006

973.931092—dc22

[B]

eISBN: 978-0-7679-2635-5

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