Saving Graces: Finding Solace and Strength From Friends and Strangers
by Elizabeth Edwards (Broadway Books, $24.95)

"Typically, I did my own hair and makeup, but today, the campaign had found a young local woman to do my hair. As she worked, I tried to think of nothing--not of cancer or metastasis or what I would find out the next day at the doctor's office in Boston. I asked her about herself, and as she talked, I watched her small pretty face….It would have been a darling hairdo on someone young and tiny, like she was. On me, it was dreadful. And so, bless this woman's heart, I started to cry….'Oh, my God,' was all she could say, the hairbrush frozen in midair as she looked at me, stricken.

I tried to respond but couldn't speak through the tears. She put the brush down and struggled to speak herself. 'Mrs. Edwards,' she said, tears filling her own eyes…'I can't tell you what today meant for me, Mrs. Edwards. It was such an honor to be asked to do your hair, and you're probably about to become the wife of the vice president of the United States, and all week I couldn't wait to meet you, and I can't believe how much you hate your hair….'

'I'm going to tell you something,' I said to her, her hands in mine, 'but it's a secret….'And so I told this young woman the news that most people in my family still did not know. 'I have breast cancer. And I am afraid, because for all I know right now, it could be even worse.' " –excerpted from the book