My Friend John McCain
MidWeek columnist Jerry Coffee and John McCain have remained close friends since they were POWs in Viet -nam. Extra coverstory by Susan Page
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Del.icio.usThe Cindy McCain Nobody Sees
By SUSAN PAGE
Campaigning alongside her famous husband, Cindy McCain, beautifully coiffed and designer-suit clad, reeks of Grace Kelly-like sophistication. But who is she, really?
Her husband is widely labeled a fiercely independent maverick. But looking closer, Cindy, the former rodeo barrel-racer, the private pilot, race-car-driver, humanitarian mission worker and mother of four, is easily his match in the maverick department.
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Cindy Hensley was supposed to go to USC, get a little degree in something, come home to Phoenix and join the successful family beer distributorship. Instead she got her M.A. in special education, helping develop a movement therapy program for severely disabled children, then came home and said “No, thanks, Dad,” and started working with Down syndrome children.
She was supposed to marry some well-heeled young man from Arizona. Instead, she married a divorced Navy pilot 17 years her senior with three children and a broken body.
She was supposed to go to Washington with her congressman husband. Instead, with his blessing, she’d raise their children in Phoenix out of the political spotlight, as a single mom of sorts, while her husband answered his duty call.
Cindy McCain, healthy and young, was supposed to have children easily. Instead, she suffered many miscarriages until finally Meghan, then Jack, then Jimmy were born in the 1980s.
She could’ve stayed busy as a senator’s wife and as an heiress, entertaining, decorating and socializing. Instead, she formed AMVT (American Voluntary Medical Team) and spent her time taking emergency medical teams to disaster sites and war-torn areas - 55 trips in all.
She came from privilege and couldn’t complain about her chronic pain from repaired ruptured discs, not when innocent children suffered. Instead, she became addicted to painkillers to keep up her pace. (Her public disclosure in 1993 and ultimate recovery served to draw attention to addictions).
Cindy wasn’t supposed to have more children. Instead, in 1991 while at Mother Teresa’s orphanage in Dhaka, Bangladesh, she brought home one baby girl with a cleft palate and another with a failing heart, presenting John with a tiny surprise, Bridgette. (A family friend adopted the other baby, Mickey).
In 1996, I met Cindy at a dinner with our husbands at John Dominis. She could’ve talked about her extensive humanitarian work and travels. Instead, warm and self-effacing, she wanted to hear all about my children.
In 2004, at 50, she suffered a stroke and wasn’t supposed to recover completely. Instead, she rehabbed herself back to walking and talking normally and back to her work with children.
Who is Cindy McCain? Like most women, she’s more than meets the eye: businesswoman, foundation director, wife, mother. But time and again, one word, appears in her story, “children.” Even during her husband’s presidential campaign, she’s in Vietnam and Cambodia with Operation Smile, which performs cleft palate surgeries on children, like the one her own precious Bridgette had 16 years ago.
She’s been asked, given her aversion to the spotlight, does she even want to be first lady? Absolutely. If she can use her position to help children.
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