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By MIKE BAKER and JOCELYN NOVECK, Associated Press


      CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) - A son dying young. A six-year battle
with cancer. A humiliating betrayal.


      Americans knew Elizabeth Edwards in large part through her
tragedies, but more importantly, they knew her for the vitality and
determination she showed through them. Her cancer incurable and her
former-presidential-candidate husband mired in a paternity scandal,
she did not shrink from public life but shared her story and
advocated for health-care reform.


      "We can look at that face of courage and realize we can have
that, too," said Darlene Gardner, 62, who runs a cancer support
group and founded a store in Cary that provides wigs and other
items for those with the disease. "It shows you that, in spite of
everything that's going on, you can come through anything."


      Edwards died of cancer Tuesday at her North Carolina home
surrounded by her three children, siblings, friends and her
estranged husband, John. She was 61.


      Elizabeth Edwards and her family had informed the public that
she had weeks, if not days, left when they announced on Monday that
doctors had told her that further treatment would do no good. Ever
the public figure, Edwards thanked supporters on her Facebook page.


      "The days of our lives, for all of us, are numbered," she
wrote. "We know that. And yes, there are certainly times when we
aren't able to muster as much strength and patience as we would
like. It's called being human. But I have found that in the simple
act of living with hope, and in the daily effort to have a positive
impact in the world, the days I do have are made all the more
meaningful and precious. And for that I am grateful."


      Her final days were in the company of her surviving children and
their father.


      "He loved Elizabeth," David "Mudcat" Saunders, a political
adviser and friend of the family, said of John Edwards. "You climb
that many mountains and you go through the deepest valley that two
people can possibly go through together - the loss of a child - and
that makes for an incredible bond."


      Saunders relayed a scene from Monday, told to him by John
Edwards, when their youngest child, 10-year-old Jack, came in the
room to tell his mother he loved her. She smiled at him and said,
"I love you, too, sweetie," Saunders said.


      Edwards shared her life struggles in memoirs. In a series of
book events starting in 2006, her insights brought women who
confided in Edwards about how they dealt with hair loss from
treatments or how her words helped them cope with lost children.


      In her book "Saving Graces," Edwards talked about collapsing
in the aisle of a grocery store after seeing her son's favorite
soda - Cherry Coke- a few months after he died in a car accident at
the age of 16. Later, she wrote about how physically grueling the
cancer treatments were. This year, she detailed in a new chapter to
her second memoir how difficult it was to leave her husband of 30
years after his infidelity.


      "In her life, Elizabeth Edwards knew tragedy and pain,"
President Barack Obama said in a statement. "Many others would
have turned inward; many others in the face of such adversity would
have given up. But through all that she endured, Elizabeth revealed
a kind of fortitude and grace that will long remain a source of
inspiration."


      On Facebook, an Elizabeth Edwards fan page was inundated with
several posts a minute after her death was announced. Many of those
offering condolences mentioned their own experiences with cancer,
or those of their relatives.


      "People identified with her and saw how courageous she was
under extemely difficult circumstances," said Barbara Chassin, a
62-year-old cancer survivor from Phoenix, in an interview. "Also,
she was fairly realistic about her prognosis, and that's a good
thing."


      Dr. Linda Vahdat, an oncologist and director of the Breast
Cancer Research Program at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill
Cornell Medical Center in New York City, said Edwards' public
discussions about her diagnosis, illness and treatment have helped
raise awareness. She said her breast cancer patients were talking
about Edwards on Tuesday.

      "They're sad," Vahdat said. "People have always been rooting
for her."


      The Edwardses' son Wade died before John Edwards turned to
politics. Two of their three children, Emma Claire and Jack, were
born after his death, joining daughter Cate.


      Elizabeth Edwards advised her husband during his successful 1998
Senate campaign in North Carolina and his presidential runs in 2004
and 2008. Doctors found a lump on her breast in 2004, in the final
days of her husband's vice presidential campaign, and she was later
diagnosed. The Democratic John Kerry-John Edwards ticket lost to
incumbent President George W. Bush.


      After treatments, doctors found her to be cancer-free, but in
early 2007, shortly after John Edwards launched a second bid for
the White House, the couple learned that her cancer had returned in
an incurable form.


      "We are not in denial," Edwards wrote in an updated version of
her first memoir published in 2007. "I will die much sooner than I
want to. I will leave a splendid man and an amazing daughter with
yet another funeral to attend when they place me in the ground next
to Wade and I will not be able to comfort them. And I will leave
two magical children whom I love with all my being too early."


      Her husband added to her suffering with an affair with
videographer Rielle Hunter that he publicly acknowledged in 2008.
Instead of playing a role in the final weeks of the presidential
race, which Edwards had quit after poor primary showings, he and
Elizabeth retreated almost entirely from public life.


      Hunter had a baby that John Edwards insisted was not his until
January 2010, when he acknowledged he had fathered the child. A
week later, friends revealed that he and Elizabeth had separated.


      While Elizabeth Edwards pleaded for privacy, she also wrote a
memoir - her second - that discussed how the affair repulsed her.
She went on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" to talk about it, but only
on the condition that Winfrey not mention Hunter's name.


      Edwards said in interviews that it didn't matter whether her
husband had fathered a child with Hunter, saying, "that would be
part of John's life." Still, she stood by him.


      "Nothing will be quite as I want it, but sometimes we eat the
toast that is burned on one side anyway, don't we?" she wrote in
the memoir, "Resilience."


      With no campaign to focus on, Elizabeth Edwards returned to
advocacy work, appearing on her own and often without any mention
of her husband to push for universal health care. She often
wondered aloud about the plight of those who faced the same of kind
of physical struggles she did but without her personal wealth.


      "Even at the end of her life to reassure people that she still
felt that living a life that was filled with hope and really
believing in resilience gave meaning to her life," Jennifer
Palmieri, a family friend and national press secretary for John
Edwards' 2004 presidential campaign, said Wednesday on CBS' "The
Early Show."


      Glenn Bergenfield, a classmate of both Elizabeth and John
Edwards at the University of North Carolina Law School, told CBS
Elizabeth Edwards' legacy would be one of grace and patience in the
face of adversity.


      "Elizabeth was unafraid of anything that I ever saw,"
Bergenfield said. "She's faced into the most horrendous thing that
we can all think about, the loss of a child, and she's done it with
grace."


      Ellen Schoenfeld, a breast cancer survivor in New York, said
Edwards "faced her illness with a ton of strength and a lot of
hope and faith. She took it on with such grace and dignity."


      Schoenfeld said Edward gave other people with cancer "the
motivation to live their lives the way they want to live them,"
she said. "People might think you need to change the way you live
when you get a diagnosis like that, but she wanted to maintain a
sense of normalcy, for her kids and for herself, too. I think she
just wanted to live as normal a life as possible."


      Noveck reported from New York.
      

Gallery

Elizabeth Edwards dies at 61

Americans knew Elizabeth Edwards in large part through her
tragedies, but more importantly, they knew her for the vitality and
determination she showed through them.

Elizabeth Edwards' legacy: toughness amid tragedy

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