In her own words... some of you long timers might remember this DU connection w Elizabeth

[ourbluenation]

Cate and I delivered the younger children to school this morning. They kissed us and hugged us and crawled out with their backpacks, then, as we made the loop to head home (after a coffee-stop for Cate), we slowed to wave to them as they stood together in front of their school waiting to blow us more kisses. It is a routine that we (either I alone, John and I, or Cate and I) repeat every school morning, and an affirmation to me that I can count on normal days filled with comforting routine and with hugs.

You all have hugged me, and I thank each one of you. From the posts on the blog here (and nearly everywhere, it seems), to the emails offering support and prayers and remedies and affection, to the cards and letters I cherish, to the flowers and teddy bears, the elixirs and photographs -- including the astounding twelve dozen -- yes, you read that right -- twelve dozen beautiful pink roses from Democratic Underground -- you have hugged me, you have made a difficult time easier, and you have hardened my resolve (okay, maybe my resolve was pretty hard already) to fight this.

I want you to turn that compassion and determination now away from me and toward others. Either toward the particular others around you who need your love and support, because, I promise, your love and support is powerful, or toward the collective others who need us to fight for universal health care, or for economic justice, or for an end to this war. You can do both, of course, (please do) but I have to say how much I have thought about those collective others today. A woman leaned over me as I was signing books in Cleveland this week. She didn't have a book; she had a story. She had found a lump in her breast but she hadn't had it checked out. You have to do that right away, I told her. She couldn't, she told me, she had no health insurance. I told her not to leave, and we rushed to locate someone who could help her. By the time we did, she had left the building, another woman slipping through the cracks. We can solve her individual problem or we can get universal health care and solve the problems of all women (and men) in her condition. She was just one page of a long and sad record we have of leaving some Americans out. Out of health care, out of a decent job or a job at all, out of a good education, out of a good and safe neighborhood, out of the American Dream. It is true that John and I and our children have a story, too, but I will get what I need while she might not. That will remain unchanged, unless you turn the energy and the compassion you have so generously, so sweetly given to me and give it to her and our brothers and sisters, by reaching out and by working for change.

As for me, I will continue the fight to get John elected, for a thousand reasons, not the least of which is that beautiful woman who stood before me in Cleveland, and I will fight this disease. On Monday, I will begin campaigning again in New Hampshire and then Tuesday and Wednesday it's on to Iowa. And in the next weeks, I will begin the treatment that I intend to let me live until the medicine catches up with me and changes that word "incurable." It is great to know that in both fights, I will have you beside me.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

[lumberjack_jeff]

1. .

:(

[cry baby]

2. i remember

i'm so sad at her passing.

[PBS Poll-435]

3. She is and always will be so beautiful.

What a loss.

[avaistheone1]

4. Lovely and real.

Thanks for posting it ourbluenation.

[Rockholm]

5. I remember that! How cool.

Miss you already, Elizabeth. You would have been a terrific first lady.

[underseasurveyor]

6. I remember that. Maybe 12 dozen pink DU roses

should be sent to her at her final resting place. She really did seem to love them... I mean look at her smile:-)

[underseasurveyor]

7. kick

Elizabeth Edwards :loveya:

[Withywindle]

8. K&R

May you always have roses, Elizabeth.

[oasis]

9. Thanks Elizabeth.

:yourock: