ShareThisElizabeth Edwards has long tried to forge a thin gray path between public and private life.
She asks for privacy to deal with the affair that her husband, John, a one-time presidential hopeful, had with former campaign videographer Rielle Hunter.
But as images are splashed across the country of her husband's paramour entering a federal courthouse in Raleigh with tow-headed toddler on hip, Elizabeth Edwards is making appearances of her own.
Elizabeth Edwards does not wish to talk about her husband's affair. Edwards appeared Wednesday on the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill campus, where she had worked as an English graduate student, talking about her book, "Resilience: Reflections on the Burdens and Gifts of Facing Life's Adversities."
The book touches on how she dealt with her husband's indiscretion. But questions about that were off limits. She was there to talk about the North Carolina Literary Festival and her place among the 100-plus authors coming to the UNC-CH campus Sept. 10-13.
There would be no comments on possible DNA tests to determine who fathered Hunter's child. Nor would there be any discussion about the federal investigation into her husband's campaign spending.
When a reporter broached the subject with a question about her resilience during the trying times, Edwards got testy.
She wanted to promote reading and literature, not scandal and tabloid fodder.
"Serious people in the news are talking about serious issues," Edwards said. "Attention to things like this as opposed to the serious issues is one of the things that contributes to the dumbing down."
Edwards, 60, did take a few minutes to talk about the death of Sen. Edward Kennedy and her hope that his passing would be the needed impetus for health-care reform.
While tugging on a wig of what she called her "spare hair," she discussed her own health.
Diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer, Edwards said she had hair of her own underneath her wig, but it was very short. Since her diagnosis of incurable cancer, Edwards has experienced tumor growth in some places and tumor reduction elsewhere.
She was on her way to a medical appointment after the morning news conference.
"My job is to stay alive," Edwards said.
Part of what Edwards says she hopes to do in her life is show her children how to be resilient.
That is why she opened a furniture store, Red Window, in Chapel Hill last week. And that is why she wrote her book, she said.
Whether she is around or not, the book will show them "at least I navigated the hard times," she said.
(Contact Anne Blythe at anne.blythe(at)newsobserver.com)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
Must credit The News and Observer of Raleigh, N.C.
