An Answer That's Blowing in the Wind

An Answer That's Blowing in the Wind
John Edwards's Political Rise Followed Tragedy, And Much Joy

By Richard Leiby
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 7, 2001; Page C01

They were halfway to a great time when they hit the bad spot. That's where the interstate yawns across an empty stretch of flat North Carolina farmland, where the crosswinds always kicked up. If they kept a steady 70 mph, they could make the beach by sunset, but gusts were rocking the boys' SUVs harder than the Blues Traveler tunes that tumbled from their speakers.

They were four high school juniors from Raleigh heading for spring break in Wilmington, N.C.: Wade Edwards and Tyler Highsmith in the shiny black Grand Cherokee, Matt Nowell and Will Henderson following in the older blue Explorer. It was a clear, mild evening in April 1996. They wore shorts and T-shirts.

Travel plaza ahead: time for a pit stop. Over Wendy's food, they plotted their vacation at the Edwards family beach house, then steered south again on I-40. Sixteen-year-old Wade joined a line of cars in the left lane pulling past a slower driver. Tyler, handling CD selections from the passenger seat, looked over and saw Wade gripping the wheel tightly with both hands. Struggling to keep control.

Suddenly the wind seized the Jeep, shoving it out of the left lane, off the road and onto the grassy median. Wade exhaled in fright and jerked the wheel hard to the right. Maybe too hard, Tyler thought. The Jeep flipped over. It rolled twice more and landed on the median upside down, and it started to catch fire.

Dangling in his seat belt, Tyler strained to see his friend in the driver's seat. But the roof had totally caved in on that side. Tyler clawed at the belt latch, dropped to the ground and wedged himself through the shattered passenger window onto the grass. He saw flames and bolted right into the arms of his buddy Matt, who'd materialized almost instantly with Will. They'd seen everything from a few cars back.

Wade was still in the Jeep, belted in, trapped.

"Wade," they yelled. "Can you see us? Can you hear us?"

Silence.

Another motorist put out the fire with an extinguisher, and emergency vehicles quickly arrived. The police said the driver would have to be cut out of the Cherokee, but they did not seem to be in a big hurry.

Wade Edwards -- the kid everybody loved to hang out with -- was gone. The void was immense for his friends and family. They tried to fill it by asking questions -- How did this happen? Why did it happen? Who was at fault? -- but there were no satisfying answers.

He wasn't drinking or on drugs. He wasn't speeding, he wasn't distracted. Despite his age, he'd logged thousands of miles ferrying his friends around town and being a courier for the law firm of his father, John.

John Edwards was the most successful trial lawyer in North Carolina. A millionaire many times over, he ranked among the best personal injury and medical malpractice litigators in the nation. He took on wrongdoers and made them pay. Wade's mother, Elizabeth, was a lawyer, too.

So if there were people to blame for this, somebody to sue, certainly they would hold them accountable. But Wade's parents didn't try to do that.

You can't sue the wind. Sometimes you just have to let it carry you in another direction.

"Mr. President!" Greetings and laughter billow out of the Senate's members-only elevator as John Edwards, Democrat of North Carolina, enters. The "Mr. President" salute is a little joke by Sen. Conrad Burns, an untelegenic Republican from Montana. It's a comment on the media attention being lavished on Edwards, who seems to be trailed everywhere by cameras and reporters.

Everything has changed since Wade died. Edwards and his wife both quit practicing law. He spent $6 million of their fortune to win his first political race, unseating Republican Lauch Faircloth in 1998. He landed on the short list in Al Gore's veep-stakes in the 2000 race for the White House. By many accounts, he was the runner-up to Sen. Joseph Lieberman.

Edwards also became a new father, twice over. Elizabeth Edwards was 48 when their daughter was delivered; she was 50 when their son was born last year.

And now Edwards, a youthful 48, has been anointed as a strong Democratic contender for the White House in 2004 -- anointed mainly by reporters. Women in the media especially seem to like him.

"A cutie," says Star Jones, co-host of ABC's "The View." "The sexiest man in politics -- and he's smart, too," says a cover-teaser on Elle magazine.

Edwards whirs through the Dirksen Building on the way to his office, an athletic guy with good hair, walking very fast, long arms moving like a metronome. "Oh, me," he sighs. "Lord have mercy."

He mutters quaint Southernisms whenever he seems a bit flustered. Though he invites the swooning coverage, even he hints that it's getting a bit much. He's been in the Senate 2 1/2 years. Other than his sponsorship of the patients' bill of rights and work on campaign finance reform, he hasn't compiled much of a legislative record. He departed for his first official overseas visit, to Israel, on Sunday.

Detractors regard the boyish-looking Edwards -- there's no gray to be seen in his light brown mop and just a hint of crow's feet when he squints -- as a yuppie lawyer who leveraged his fat fee awards and anchorman presence into a Senate seat. But look into those blue eyes and there's something else.

A warmth, a connection, a certain . . . well, okay, charisma. Listen to this recent lead-in by Diane Sawyer on "Good Morning America":

"He is said to have the combined political skills -- are you ready for this -- of Clinton and Kennedy. Kennedy and Clinton together!"

He is said to have . . .

Wait. Said by whom? "Probably by the guy who sold her her paper that day," Edwards says, unable to stifle a guffaw.

It's not just a media love fest, though. Important party operatives and contributors are getting aboard Edwards '04. Asked for his view, former president Bill Clinton said: "Senator John Edwards is gifted with substance and style, a fine mind and a good heart. . . . I expect his service in North Carolina and America to grow dramatically."

Edwards's slight drawl, his centrism, his humble origins as the son of textile workers, his populist ideals (slogan: "The People's Senator"), his skill at simplifying things without seeming patronizing -- all this stirs memories of Clinton without the seamy side. So, with Gore playing the invisible man, Edwards is basking in all the attention and speculation. He seems more comfortable in his skin than Gore, and stresses in interviews: "You have to be yourself. You cannot fool people."

How did he become such a talked-about political sensation, so soon?

"It's the world, you know," he offers with a cryptic laugh. Then tries to explain: "I don't think any of us have real control over a lot of these things. We just do our best and things go the way they do."

He has learned that it is better not to dwell on imponderables, hypotheticals, what-ifs. He smiles brightly and forges on.

Kilimanjaro's Lessons

The father and son were climbing in the dark, ascending the highest mountain in Africa: Kilimanjaro. After five days, they were nearing the summit, some 20,000 feet over the coffee plantations of Tanzania, and now it was getting treacherous. They started the final ascent at midnight; they kept slipping on rock and volcanic ash, gasping for oxygen in the frigid night.

John and Wade Edwards were both lean and fit. Despite their age difference, they looked much alike: same physiques (both wore a 40R jacket), similar haircuts, the blue eyes, the determination to succeed showing in their faces. They enjoyed each other's company more than most fathers and teenage sons, and this was their ultimate bonding experience.

"We were very close before we did it, and even closer when it was over," says John Edwards.

It was July 1995, the summer before the accident. The Edwardses made the climb with another father-son team, federal bankruptcy judge Rich Leonard and his son Matt, also from North Carolina. A marathon runner, Edwards didn't think he'd have too much trouble on the climb, his first; Kilimanjaro isn't considered a technically difficult mountain, referred to by locals as "the big walk."

But at 16,000 feet, he started to falter. His head ached, he grew nauseated and weak, suffering from altitude sickness. Medication didn't bring relief. Too sick to eat, he ended up losing 20 pounds.

He also had to fight a lifelong phobia: John Edwards was afraid of heights.

Wade, nearly 16, still had agonizing blisters on his feet from having just completed Outward Bound's mountaineering school in the Colorado Rockies. But he proved the stronger of the two. Wade coaxed and took care of his father, Rich Leonard remembers. On the night of the final ascent, after it appeared that John couldn't go on, the boy gave him a pep talk.

"He was able, because of his own training and experience, to help me get to the top," says John Edwards.

Toward the end, the father's headlamp flickered out. The son guided him through the darkness to the summit. And John Edwards lost his fear of heights.

Off Limits

Sipping Diet Coke in his office or slicing into a swordfish steak in the Senate Dining Room, he is willing to talk about almost anything. Includinghis view of the afterlife ("when we die, there will be a day where the Lord judges you for what you've done"), his fondness for bluegrass music and Bruce Springsteen, and his position on kids' cartoons: "More 'Scooby-Doo,' less 'A Pup Named Scooby-Doo.' " (His 3-year-old, Emma Claire, is an avid viewer.)

Who does his hair: some guy on Capitol Hill. "Why, you lookin' for a haircut?" (Turns out it's Ian McWilliams of Bravado Hair Design, a hot stylist whose clients have included Bill Clinton, Chelsea Clinton and Al Gore.)

But one part of his life is walled off from public discussion. It involves a profoundly important decision, a moment of personal transformation.

When did he decide to run for the United States Senate?

He says he doesn't remember.

Was it before or after Wade's death?

He says he can't provide that answer.

"I don't talk about the death of my son in the context of politics. I'm not gonna do that. That's just, I just, I just -- ". He gropes.

"People. I'm afraid people will misunderstand or misinterpret or whatever. For that reason I just -- I don't talk about that."

He knows Al Gore faced criticism for citing his sister's lung cancer death in a speech at the Democratic National Convention in 1996. Says a longtime friend of Edwards: "We've become a culture of confession, but he's not like that. It's not because he's afraid of looking like a politician and using this to get votes, but because it's a sacred memory."

The Son's Dream

Wade Edwards was known among friends for his constant smile, his kindness and generosity. He was also, unlike most teenagers, intensely patriotic. He hoped his father would someday run for public office.

"That was like his dream for his dad: He wanted his dad badly to be in politics or be senator," says Wade's friend Matt Nowell, now 23. He recalls how they talked about it in 10th grade. "He would say, 'Someday my dad's gonna be senator.' We're like, 'Right -- that's not going to happen.' "

John Edwards had mused about getting into politics, made some contributions to candidates, but was devoted to his law practice. He was relentless, "the avenging angel of plaintiffs," as one local paper put it. Community service? Well, he served on the board of a homeless shelter and dressed up as Santa to hand out toys in the projects at Christmas.

In March 1996, he got an invitation to the White House, his first -- thanks to Wade. The Edwardses came to Washington to meet first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton as part of a ceremony honoring Wade for his writing. He made the finals in a contest whose theme was "What It Means to Be an American."

In it, he described accompanying his father on Election Day as a small boy. They went into the firehouse and into a curtained booth. "There is no place in America where equality means as much as in the voting booth," Wade wrote.

His father held him up. Then he cast his father's vote, pulling down the lever with both hands.

Three weeks after bringing his family to the White House, Wade died on Interstate 40.

After Nothing

During the funeral service, John Edwards, renowned as a master orator, delivered no remarks of his own. He read passages from Wade's diaries, rocking back and forth, trying not to break down. A thousand people packed the church. Hillary Clinton sent condolences. Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) later entered Wade's writings into the Congressional Record and eulogized him as a "remarkable young man."

The Edwardses opened their big white Colonial on Alleghany Drive to any kids who wanted to share memories of Wade. It was always a hangout, the neighborhood hive. Wade and his friends played basketball endlessly on the court that Edwards had installed behind the house. In the years after the crash, friends like Matt and Tyler were still invited over to dinner on Tuesdays to continue the tradition.

His room was preserved exactly as it was, his bed made, his clean shirts folded on a chair. But otherwise, the family's old life was over.

"Six months of nothing." That is how Elizabeth Edwards recalls the immediate mourning period. She is sitting in the ornately decorated den of their Washington home, the loss still fresh on her face. On a coffee table in front of her are sculptures depicting the faces of Wade and their daughter Cate, around ages 9 and 6.

"What would Wade have liked?" That question guided the parents as their jobs became setting up projects in their son's name. They established a nonprofit foundation and an after-school computer center, the Wade Edwards Learning Lab, where kids could do homework and receive technical training. They sponsored a scholarship and creative-writing contest. They commissioned a 120-foot-long, comet-shaped sculpture at Wade's school.

Elizabeth believes she is still parenting her son in a way. "You don't want him to become his death," she says. "You want him to become what he would have been."

She does not want his death to be viewed as the "inspiration" her husband needed to come to Washington: "I just think that it's not fair to Wade and it's not fair to John," she says. "The more he becomes the story of why John is a politician, the less he becomes who he was."

"John was actually talking about running for Faircloth's seat before Wade died," Elizabeth says. "We sort of had these conversations as a family." His decision was "not simply the product of Wade's death, but an evolution, a long evolution."

Elizabeth quit doing business bankruptcy litigation -- "It was not possible for me to make that seem important." -- and changed her last name. When she and John married 24 years ago, she had kept her maiden name. To honor Wade, Elizabeth Anania became an Edwards.

The senator is given to swift and direct answers, while Elizabeth is more ruminative and erudite. Surrounded by shelves of books, dressed in baby-blue slacks and a sunny yellow sweater, she drops references to Willa Cather, Henry James and William Dean Howells. The one-time English graduate student laughingly announces, "I happen to know, which I'm sure you do not, that Wordsworth's dog's name was Music."

Elizabeth had completed three years of course work for a doctorate when she enrolled at the University of North Carolina's law school and met John in the basement snack bar there. His perpetual optimism impressed her; she was tired of dating English grad students who wallowed in existential misery.

John Edwards often said he felt blessed just to be the first person in his family to make it to college. In his sweater vest he looked and behaved like a gentleman caller; after their first date, he bent to kiss her, but only on the forehead.

Their lives proceeded according to plan -- they married a few days after taking the bar exam and landed jobs clerking for federal judges. They attained everything they'd wanted. The careers, the children, the money, the beach home (where Wade was headed that day). When they bought Wade his Jeep, Elizabeth had of course checked its safety record. It had a good rating, she says, "and there was no discussion of rollovers."

After the crash, they heard from other motorists who'd had trouble with the wind. But she found herself not wanting to know too many details. She didn't want to get stuck playing an endless videotape loop in her mind.

"We're not going to find a villain," she says. Her voice is low now, almost a rustle in the room. "It's just one of those things. It's just this series of circumstances. And there's really no one to yell at. No one. Curse the wind."

Trust the People

Sometimes John Edwards looks and sounds like a manufactured politician, a guy with generic first and last names spouting Capraesque cant. Photos on his Senate Web site show him clad in a courtroom suit, cuddling babies and even posing with a live bear, the better, perhaps, to connect with his wilderness constituency.

He's a common man who believes in the common man. "I grew up in a little town in North Carolina and sort of saw things through the eyes of the people I grew up with," he says, noting that his parents worked separate shifts in the cotton mills. Edwards himself earned his undergraduate degree in textiles technology (from North Carolina State University) because he wanted to be sure he could get a job.

"There are extraordinary people all over this country who aren't born into families of wealth and privilege, and they need an opportunity to shine," the politician continues. "They can do great things for themselves; they just need a chance to do it."

Trust the people, he says. It works in the jury room, and it works in the voting booth. "Regular Americans," he declares, "have an incredible ability to figure out who's being straight with them, who cares about them, who has the capacity to represent them."

Sounds as if he's tuning up for the New Hampshire primary, but Edwards is not, of course, tossing his hat into the ring at this early date. If he does, however, his wife certainly won't hold him back.

"I never want him to have another unhappy moment as long as he lives," Elizabeth says. "And if there's anything that he wants, I want it for him."

The senator's press aide quickly interjects, "Not that he's decided he wants anything."

Elizabeth laughs. "I thought that was obscure enough, wasn't it?"

If he does run, Republicans are prepared to tar his aw-shucks self-made-millionaire image. When Edwards's name made Gore's short list in 2000, a spokesman for George W. Bush reportedly crowed, "Bring us the ambulance chaser!"

But in North Carolina, at least, Edwards's record and reputation as a personal injury lawyer seemed to redound to his credit when he ran for the Senate. He was best known there for obtaining multimillion-dollar settlements on behalf of injured kids.

In the fall of 1996, after months of mourning his son, Edwards threw himself into the case of Valerie Lakey, who nearly died at the age of 5 when her intestines were suctioned out after she sat on a wading pool drain. (She requires tube feeding for at least 12 hours a day.) Edwards rebuffed settlement offers, determined to take the family's case against the drain cover manufacturer to a jury. He and his partner received a national public service award from a group of trial lawyers after they won a $25 million verdict, a North Carolina record.

It turned out that a two-cent design modification could have prevented Valerie's injury. The evidence also showed 13 other children had been hurt in similar accidents. The girl's parents later volunteered in Edwards's Senate campaign.

The Faith of Job

In a courtroom he can find the facts and pin the blame. Other times he is guided by faith. Raised a Baptist, now a Methodist, Edwards says he considers Jesus Christ to be his personal savior. He believes in a God who is all-powerful, but merciful and kind.

He has done "a fair amount" of Bible study and says, yes, he has read the Book of Job.

God comes across as a capricious, utterly ruthless character in that book. He allows Satan to torment Job -- "a blameless and upright man" -- as part of a theological exercise.

"And behold, a great wind came across the wilderness, and struck the four corners of the house . . ." All of Job's children are killed.

Why? To see if Job would renounce the God he loved.

In the end, Job does not. And God gives him new sons and daughters, to replace the ones He'd killed.

What does Sen. John Edwards make of it? Why does God let bad things happen to good people?

"I don't know the answer to that."

Faith gets us through, he says. So does what he calls "a relentless optimism."

His gaze is unwavering when he explains, "I believe that God answers prayers."

Added Joys

After Edwards won his Senate seat, he purchased a four-story, $2.2 million mansion near Massachusetts Avenue's Embassy Row. With seven bedrooms, marble floors, a terrace, balcony and a pool, it is a splendid place to entertain dignitaries.

It is, however, a terrible place to raise babies. There's no back yard to speak of. The stairs are treacherous. The floors can split little heads open.

"You can see why I have nightmares," Elizabeth Edwards says. She grows anxious, wanting to clean up before the real estate agent arrives. They've put the mansion up for sale after just over a year (asking price: $4.8 million) and are hoping to move out to the suburbs. They want more yard, mainly. For the kids.

Elizabeth says it wasn't Wade's death that prompted her and John to try to have more children. "The circumstances changed," she says. "Our life changed.

"Our house was fairly joyless. We decided, well, what gives us happiness? And we said, well, kids give us happiness."

Emma Claire arrived while Elizabeth was still living at their home in North Carolina. They moved to Washington after Cate finished high school. In May 2000 the boy they call Jack was born.Another gift.

His full name is John Atticus Edwards. It's frequently reported that the boy was named after Atticus Finch, the lawyer in "To Kill a Mockingbird." Actually he was named after Atticus of ancient Rome.

Wade Edwards, who'd thought about becoming a lawyer, studied Latin in high school. The teacher assigned everyone the name of a famous classical figure. Wade got two names: Odysseus, for the adventurer, because he had climbed a mountain. And Atticus, who was the lifelong friend of Cicero, the great lawyer.

Here comes John Atticus now, a whirring blond in short pants and a tropical shirt. He's trying to crawl onto the stairs to the third floor, trailed by a nanny. The boy has blue eyes, his dad's mop top and a confident gaze.

He really wants to get up those stairs.

And Sorrows

John Edwards is gulping down lunch, surrounded by noisy peers in the Senate Dining Room. Well-wishers pump his hand whenever they pass his table. They notice that, as usual, Edwards is doing an interview. Between bites, the senator is discoursing on his admiration for the citizens he represents while politely knocking down questions about how he got here in the first place.

He is like a good attorney handling a deposition. As he's said before, he just won't talk about Wade's death in the context of politics.

But he's wearing Wade's Outward Bound pin on his lapel. Yes, he says. He wears it in memory.

At the funeral, he read from Wade's diary, which told how much he learned in Outward Bound. Wade also wrote how much he loved his friends and family. And he wrote about the future: He wanted to become a father. A good father, he said.

Recounting this, the senator starts to cry silently. He dabs at the tears with his napkin. He isn't hiding it. At this moment he is not a politician in control.

He is a father remembering the birth of his first son on this very day, 22 years ago. He is a father who loved that child, and learned from him, then lost him. He is a common man who was changed forever by the wind.