Elizabeth Edwards and Sara Teasdale

A sad article by Monica Langley in the Wall Street Journal by tells us how Mrs. Elizabeth Edwards, diagnosed with incurable cancer, is preparing her kids, Emma Claire, Jack, and Cate, for her death:

Between campaign stops and monitoring political blogs, she is working on a "dying letter" to her three children -- a "guide to life" she started before her diagnosis but which takes on more poignancy now. Her advice runs from balancing work and family to telling her children they should always wear solids instead of stripes or plaid -- otherwise, she warns, you'll look back at old photos and cringe at what you're wearing. She is sorting out her and her children's possessions -- clothes, papers, photographs -- and boxing them to save after her death ...

Inside the house, she goes through piles of books, including many given to her by her mother, first editions of poetry by Sara Teasdale and Edna St Vincent Millay and the first American edition of "Ulysses." She has told her husband and children they need to keep them at least 10 years before they can be discarded -- in the hope her family will treasure them as much as she does. "I love my books," she says.

I love Teasdale's poetry, too, and was reminded of this poem when I read about Mrs. Edwards trying to speak now to her kids in a future without her voice:

After Death
by Sara Teasdale

Now while my lips are living
Their words must stay unsaid,
And will my soul remember
To speak when I am dead?

Yet if my soul remembered
You would not heed it, dear,
For now you must not listen,
And then you could not hear.

Poem Source: The New Poetry: An Anthology, edited by Harriet Monroe, 1917
Photo Source: Michael Millhollin