You know about Sleeping Beauty and Snow White and Ariel and Belle and all those other chicks who needed a prince to save them, right?

Have you met this princess?

Allow me to introduce you to the Princess-Who-Can-Defend-Herself.

She sits in my friend Susan’s office.

Do you know Susan?  How can you not!  She is this amazing blogger, astrophysicist, mom, writer, activist and oh yeah cancer survivor.

While I love the sentiment of  not teaching our children that the only way girls can be saved is by a muscle-bound man who swoops in on a blazing white steed–or beat up old truck for that matter–I do know when a princess could use some help.

Susan had an awful day yesterday–and I mean awful by ANYONE’s standards.  And yet?  She wrote a beautiful post about being lucky.

She blows me away.

I can’t make my friend’s cancer disappear–and damn I wish I had been put on this planet to do just that–but I can let her know that I am lucky to have her friendship, that I love her and I totally have her back if she does happen to run into that bitch cancer in a dark alley.  I’ll even bring a baseball bat to knock the wench out of this universe.

I want Susan to know that she is not alone.  Yes, the fight is hers, but she has an army of princesses (and princes) behind her.

Want to join me?

Take this badge.  Put it on your blog (it links to her post referenced above).

<a href="http://toddlerplanet.wordpress.com/2011/01/22/us-lucky/"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5126/5379798874_d4ea53e42d_m.jpg" alt="No Princess Alone button" width="125" height="125" /></a>

Let me know below in the comments that you’re with us*, then go visit Susan and let her know you’re in her army now.

Why?

Because each and every one of us–we are lucky.

*for every blog that posts this button, I will find a way to donate $1 to Crickett’s Answer.  I’m totally stealing this idea from Kristen and Jessica,  but I thought it rocked and our friend needs us. Oh and if you want to donate money to Crickett’s Answer too, please do.

For about a year after the birth of each of my children I would have occasional panic attacks that left me bereft.  It always happened as I was trying to go to sleep.  I would suddenly be overwhelmed with the idea of dying and leaving my babies without a mother.  My heart would race.  My thoughts would spin out of control.  It was terrifying.

It’s not that I feel that I’m the best mother who ever lived.  I’m sure my sons would survive without me, but no one would love them–every cell of their being–with the blinding love that I have for them.  I grew them (well two out of three of them).    I know every inch of them.

When Elizabeth Edwards died yesterday, I could feel the panic creep around the edges of my heart.

photo credit: NY Daily News

My respect for Ms. Edwards was established long ago–long before I knew she had cancer.  Her brains, grace, love of life, love for her children, self-awareness and seemingly honest self-acceptance were all so admirable.  She’s the very kind of woman I would have loved to have worked for or had as a mentor.

Learning she had cancer was sad.  Realizing she might leave young children behind was much worse.

Hearing of her death yesterday was devastating.

You see Elizabeth Edwards is but one woman, but she represents so many more.  Too many more.

Elizabeth Edwards is the public reminder of the women–the mothers–in my life who are battling breast cancer right now or living with it as a looming shadow in their recent past.  It feels like every month I’m learning of another friend who has been diagnosed–another mother with cancer.

And much like those panic attacks of early motherhood, I’m sitting here today a mix of crazy emotions.  I’m sad for the death of this wonderful woman.  I’m sad for her children.  I am afraid for my friends.  I worry about my own health.  About my children.  I am angry.  I AM SO ANGRY for each child that will be left without a mother this year.

And yet I feel helpless.

We can give money.  We can raise awareness. We can participate in studies.

But I won’t be happy until we don’t ever have to mourn another mother with cancer again.