Resilience. It means toughness, spirit, self-assurance, durability, and stamina. In her interviews with Oprah, Larry King, the Today show, etc. that's what Elizabeth Edwards seemed to display. It's the stuff of victory. It's what I wanted to know about when I read her recent book, Resilience: Reflections on the Burdens and Gifts of Facing Life's Adversities. Unfortunately, I didn't find it. Instead of Resilience, this book is about a woman with terminal cancer who seems to be second-guessing her worth and her entire life. More fitting titles would be My Life or Reflections on My Life.

Much of Resilience reads like Ms. Edwards' personal journal entries threaded together with logistical transitions. Through difficult to follow chapters, her writing bounces back and forth between the significant events of her childhood, or her marriage and the devastating death of her son. She punctuates her words with lines from poems and songs; she repeats phrases and descriptions, such as the "you are so hot" come-on line the mistress used in a hotel lobby to entice John Edwards. Her reflections are sometimes heartbreaking, and at other times show the reader a slow-burning, seething (and justifiable) anger; the writing is often sad and depressing.

Not until one of the last chapters, and only after much self-recrimination, does Ms. Edwards come to the one uplifting event of her recent years. She explains that she could find nothing in being a mother, partner or spouse that could help her deal with death, betrayal and cancer. "I wanted something that was mine," she says, finally accepting that only she must be the leader of her own life. She decides to do something that is all hers, something that fuels her passion. It's only then that she says she understands that no one else has the answers, concluding, "...but it was always in me – in me not just to find the answer but to make the changes I had the power to make." It's the most profound and powerful message she can send to every woman.

Though I liked Elizabeth Edwards before and I like her still, I wish she would have spent more of her book writing about her victories. It would have made for a better read and a more powerful legacy for her daughters...and for all women.

© 2009 Annmarie Kelly. All rights reserved. You are welcome to share this article, in whole or in part, as long as copyright and attribution are included.

Annmarie Kelly shows women how to "live out loud and in living color" by becoming leaders at work and in their lives, overcomingÈdvdrsiV, and transforming challenges into opportunities. She is the author of Victorious Wombn! Sh?K;g Li(~àSLHR¾>ERéRF

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