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…to Joan C. for her recognition that you become a survivor on the day you are diagnosed.

…to Bessie B., who was operated on a few weeks before my own cancer was discovered and who showed her stubborn determination to be a survivor when she placed an exclamation point after her signature.

…to Gay Neil W., who said swimming was the best exercise, adding that I probably had a heated pool. I don’t, but I’m going to get myself one of those, on Gay Neil’s advice.

…to Barbara Ann E., who in the midst of her third bout with cancer sent me prayers, and also her sore regrets that her hair loss made her look so much like Dick Cheney.

…to Shirley R., who terrified me with warnings about a “cranial prosthesis” until her parenthetic note made it clear she was talking about a wig. (In a letter from Monnie B., I learned that because wigs are indeed considered prosthetic devices and that doctors write prescriptions for them health insurance will cover the cost. Unfortunately I read that one a little too late to do me any good.)

…to Sandra W., who at almost sixty continued teaching school when hooked up to an IV, and then, during radiation sessions, made plans to buy a Harley. She had gotten through the surgery fine, but when she made her first visit to the oncologist’s office and walked into a room filled with exhausted women in hats or turbans or with their heads bare, she cried for the first time. Bald men, she then announced, listen up. I share your pain and now understand about cold heads and necks.

…to Nancy D., who bothered to notice that we shared the same birthday.

…to Alan C., who was convinced I had touched lives all across America, and who told John, “I will not go a night without praying for her.”

…to Pam S., who fought cancer as a single mother of a son with diabetes. In the most grim moments, she believed, as I did, that “the refusal to be a victim matters.”

…to Sue S., whose mother had breast cancer and who wrote of her concern for Cate.

…to Ada C. and Mary C., who each wrote that they could hardly write for crying. I might have taped Mary’s closing to John’s bathroom mirror—“Your wife is a goddess of knowledge and beauty”—if I wasn’t afraid it would get a laugh from a husband of twenty-nine years who has seen a very un-goddess-like me more often than I can count.

…to the Bates family, whose note started, “We are not asking for anything.” And then they offered us their thoughts and prayers.

…to Jerry H., who had testicular cancer. He wrote that God gives us strength to do the hard things He chooses to lead us through. Personally, I prefer to go around such hard times but I can’t always convince Him to see it my way.

…to Angela L., whose confidence in a good outcome, was based on the fact that we “military brats safely get through many challenges in our young lives.”

…to Mark W., who reprised John’s campaign call “Hope is on the way.” Now I want them to feel the hope we send them.

…to Sharon C., whose lump was diagnosed as a ductal carcinoma the size of a peanut M&M—and who now looks at peanut M&Ms in an altogether different light.

…to the many who wrote to me as Elizabeth, or Eliz, or even sometimes Liz, and to the many others who with equal kindness addressed me as Mrs. Edwards, and who, some of them women in their eighties and nineties, apologized for having taken the liberty of including me in their prayers.

…to Donna R., who sent a fax the day the announcement was made to tell me of a product that had helped her beat long odds. She added, with such perfect honesty, if someone told me that holding a chicken over my head would cure my cancer, I’d probably try it.

…to Adele C., who gave herself one cry daily and decided it would be in the shower. Although she never allowed herself to cry in front of her children, she admitted that some days she took two showers.

…to Margaret D. and the elderly neighbor she had hardly ever spoken to. As Margaret and her husband drove home from the hospital after her surgery