We know the battle ahead will be long. We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics… We’ve been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.

Sometimes the odds against us seem steep. Cancer is back. It’s in our bones. Our brain. The battle ahead will be long. Well-meaning friends may warn us against harboring false hope. But there has never been anything false about hope: as we wait for a cure, we can hold hope in our hearts.

Yes we can.

For when we have faced down impossible odds… When we’ve been told we’re not ready or that we shouldn’t try or that we can’t, generations have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can. Yes we can. Yes we can.

When we face down impossible odds, after we’ve been told that we can’t… When we intensify the chemo, enroll in a clinical trial, go for that extra treatment, we’re responding with a simple creed, a human creed that sums up the spirit of we sisters in survivorhood.

Yes we can.

Yes we can heal this nation. Yes we can repair this world. Yes we can.

Yes, we can heal our bodies. Yes, we can repair our spirits.

Yes we can.

We are one people. We are one nation. And together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story with three words that will ring from coast to coast, from sea to shining sea: Yes we can. 

We are one sisterhood. And together, we will move over and through and past cancer with three words that will ring from coast to coast, from sea to shining sea:

YES WE CAN.

P.S. For those of you who will respond to this post in hatred, as you often do when I mention President-elect Obama, I say this: bitterness and anger will eat away at you like a cancer. And I know how cancer can destroy a person, body and soul.

I didn’t choose to have cancer; but you can choose to harbor hatred in your heart. Or you can choose, instead, to embrace love and acceptance. To move forward with your fellow countrymen, leaving division behind and building a new and better world for our children, and for generations to come. You can make a positive choice.

Yes you can.