WASHINGTON D.C.—Whether one agreed with the political agenda of Elizabeth Edwards or not is irrelevant. Rarely do we witness the life of a truly dignified and great American in today’s era. However, if you have known the name and seen Mrs. Edwards since the 2004 presidential campaign, in which her husband Senator John Edwards was the vice presidential candidate on the Kerry-Edwards ticket, you would have to admit that despite one terrible downfall after another in her personal life, she, like many of our greatest First Ladies from Eleanor Roosevelt, Jacqueline Kennedy, Patricia Nixon, Barbara Bush, to Nancy Reagan and Hillary Clinton, had a calm demeanor and showed great poise in the presence of things crumbling around her family. Though Edwards was never the nation’s First Lady, we feel as if she will always be a part of our national political psyche.

Elizabeth Edward was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer during the election campaign in 2004. She kept that diagnosis a secret from her husband and the Kerry campaign so that she would not be a distraction from her husband’s bid to become vice president. She like former First Lady Betty Ford battled the disease of breast cancer very publicly in order to help educate other women and girls about the disease and the need for early detection. Though extremely private about her marriage, she readily admitted to reporters and the media that the loss of her eldest son in a tragic automobile accident placed a great deal of pressure on her marriage to John Edwards, and she believed that ultimately it brought them closer together.

Mrs. Edwards was devastated in 2007 when she found out that the cancer she had believed she was cured of had returned. She was very forthright with her family and even the public at the time in stating, “I know that this disease will end my life. But I plan to live until God calls me home. I want to live to see my two youngest children graduate from high school, go off to college and start their own lives. I hope that’s in God’s will for me, but I am prepared for whatever happens.” Unfortunately on Tuesday, December 7, we received the dreaded news that Elizabeth Edwards had died at her Chapel Hill, N.C. home.

Prior to her death, she became separated from her husband, Senator Edwards, who cheated on her with a campaign staffer from his 2008 campaign for president. Senator Edwards initially denied the affair not only to the public, but publicly to his wife as well. He often chastised reporters who asked him about the validity of the accusations, calling it, “rubbish.” A married friend of John Edwards, who was also a staffer, was allegedly asked by Edwards to claim paternity of the mistress’s daughter so that he would not have to tell his dying wife or the public the truth. We later learned through The National Enquirer magazine that not only was the staffer not the father of the little girl, but that Edwards was the father of this child and allegedly still seeing the mother behind Elizabeth Edwards’s back.

The heartbreak of cancer and losing a child would be pushed to the background. Instead, in the forefront of Mrs. Edwards’s pain was the news that would traumatize any wife, much less one that is battling a fight for her life with cancer that had gone not only into her breasts but into her bones. Mrs. Edwards wrote her second book entitled, “Resilience,” in which she chronicled the lies she’d been told by her husband, and then soon after its publication she filed for a legal separation from John Edwards.

Mrs. Edwards tirelessly fought for healthcare reform and lobbied for women’s health issues. She was an attorney, who also worked in the North Carolina Attorney General’s office, and she had a distinguished career as a defense and advocate attorney. She leaves three children as part of her living legacy.

Again, whether one agreed or disagreed with the political beliefs of Elizabeth Edwards, we should all take comfort in knowing that she was a role model not only to women, but to all Americans and many of her supporters around the world. Perhaps the loss of someone who showed Americans such dignity in the presence of such turmoil, we as Americans can start to show each other a little more respect during political discussions and in our daily lives.

Elizabeth Edwards was 61.