Sometimes You Have to Quit

First off I'd like to say a few words expressing the deep feelings of admiration I have for John Edwards. The man has gone through things that would have broken lesser people. He lost his son Wade in 96'. Then, during the final leg of his VP campaign with John Kerry his wife Elizabeth was diagnosed with breast cancer. A cancer which she thought she had beat, but has now returned, treatable, but ultimately fatal. She could only have years to live, or she might survive, or she might pass on in months. The doubt is only the beginning of the agony of this horrible disease. It would be a triumph for any one to live through one of these tragedies, but two is far beyond, at least this writer's, comprehension. And that is why, in my own opinion, you should quit this campaign.

You know, perhaps its a fact of human existence that we don't prize and value the things we have when we have them. Maybe we just can't help it no matter how wise we are, or think we are. A couple of days ago my fiance left to Paris to vacation with her sister. Now usually I come back home from work and want to do a million different things before I go to bed. There's writing, blogging, online poker, video games, reading, television watching, and more poker, and of course most of these things require, to some extent, isolation. My fiance chides me about it (alright, annoys me :) saying that I should spend more time with her, and my response usually is: you need a hobby, and yes, sometimes she really does.

But now that she's gone--you guessed it--I realize what she truly means to me. Coming home to a cold, dead empty house has to be one of the most depressing and dull experiences of my life, and the hole that's left when someone you love is gone is darkest void anyone can imagine. It is the nightmare of all nightmares. Yeah, I know that she's coming back in a week, but imagining not having her in my life...well, today at least, I don't know how I could go on, and if she were dying I think I'd want to spend as much time with her as possible, because as trite and Hallmarkish as it sounds, spending time with the people you love might be the most important thing in life, and definitely more important than a job, even if that job is President of the United States.

If you go on to run Sen. Edwards I'll still respect you and your family. But sometimes you can show the greatest courage by standing down, and your greatest lesson can be that family comes first. Now that's values.