Book saves memory of son, Edwards tells Oprah

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Sep. 28--Recounting the death of a loved one is painful, but Elizabeth Edwards said writing about her son, Wade, who died in a car crash in 1996, was a way of "parenting his memory."

"You're just afraid that they're going to be erased somehow," Edwards told Oprah Winfrey and her national audience in a broadcast aired Wednesday. "So you want to do something to make certain that they're not erased."

Edwards, the wife of former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, was joined by her husband, who got a standing ovation from the "Oprah" audience. With them was their oldest daughter, Cate.

Elizabeth Edwards talked about her new book, "Saving Graces," in which she recalls her family's grief after 16-year-old Wade's death. John Edwards admitted that, for him, parts of the book were still "very hard to read."

Elizabeth Edwards also talked about creating the Wade Edwards Learning Lab for free tutoring and computer access in Raleigh. And she recalled dealing with breast cancer during the 2004 presidential campaign, when her husband was the running mate of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

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Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

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