Last week, Elizabeth Edwards spoke on campus about living with breast cancer. She talked about maintaining your dignity while wearing a paper nightgown with no back, and feeling lonely when your hair falls out in the shower, even though your wonderful husband is at your side for every doctors visit and chemotherapy session. The thousands of e-mails and cards she received always cheered her up. She felt connected to people worldwide, young and old, daughters, mothers, husbands. She loved the yellow, faded cards that looked like they were sent by a widower who had saved all of his wife’s old cards.
Elizabeth’s final thought hit me the hardest. She lives her life every day, as normally as possible, and does everything she loves, in spite of her cancer. The cancer is part of her, yes, but it does not define her. It is not all of her. Her closing words:
“I am Elizabeth. I am married to John. I have four wonderful children. I have blue eyes that are beginning to gray, like my hair. I like tomato sandwiches. I have cancer.”
I am Suzie. I love listening to the Red Hot Chili Peppers and sliding into 3rd base whenever I play softball (and sometimes kickball). I am incredibly close to my brother. Despite the fact that I am half Egyptian and she is blond, my best friend and I tell everyone that we are biological sisters. I have ADD.
