Elizabeth edwards

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After a six-year battle with breast cancer, Elizabeth Edwards has died at age 61, ABC News has learned.

"Elizabeth Anania Edwards, mother, author, advocate died today at her home in Chapel Hill, surrounded by her family," said a statement released by her family just after 5 p.m. "Today we have lost the comfort of Elizabeth's presence but she remains the heart of this family."

"We love her and will never know anyone more inspiring or full of life," the statement read.

Earlier this week it was announced that Edwards, who had been admitted and then released from the hospital over Thanksgiving, had stopped all cancer treatment.

"Elizabeth has been advised by her doctors that further treatment of her cancer would be unproductive," said a statement released by Edwards' family earlier this week. "She is resting at home with family and friends."

Edwards, who was estranged from her husband and one-time presidential hopeful John Edwards, was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004.

A close friend of the Edwards family told ABC News that John Edwards was among those who were at her side during her final days. The friend described the environment at the house as warm and peaceful. The mood was sad, but also full of warm feelings too.

The friend said Elizabeth was not in pain, and was at peace with what is happening. The children, the friend said, are doing "OK."

"On behalf of Elizabeth we want to express our gratitude to the thousands of kindred spirits who moved and inspired her along the way. Your support and prayers touched our entire family," read the statement after Edwards' death.

The family requests that in lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Wade Edwards Foundation which benefits the Wade Edwards Learning Lab at www.wade.org.

Funeral details were not immediately known.

Just one day before losing her battle to cancer, Edwards wrote a moving message on her Facebook page.

"You all know that I have been sustained throughout my life by three saving graces my family, my friends, and a faith in the power of resilience and hope," she wrote. "These graces have carried me through difficult times and they have brought more joy to the good times than I ever could have imagined."

"The days of our lives, for all of us, are numbered. We know that. And, yes, there are certainly times when we aren't able to muster as much strength and patience as we would like. It's called being human," wrote Edwards.

"But I have found that in the simple act of living with hope, and in the daily effort to have a positive impact in the world, the days I do have are made all the more meaningful and precious. And for that I am grateful."


Edwards cancer returned in 2007, when her husband was campaigning for the democratic presidential nomination.

John Edwards said at the time, "Her cancer is back. We are very optimistic about this."

"Her cancer is back. We are very optimistic about this," John Edwards said at the time.

But the stage four cancer was deemed incurable and within a year, Edwards was fighting another battle. It was revealed that her husband had a sexual relationship with filmmaker Rielle Hunter.

Edwards recounted the situation her book, "Resilience," and spoke about the revelation with Oprah Winfrey.

"It was...it was just a really tough. That was a really tough night," she told Winfrey.

In January, the couple separated after 30 years of marriage after John admitted he had fathered a daughter with Hunter.

Born Mary Elizabeth Anania, Elizabeth Edwards grew up in Virginia as the daughter of a navy pilot.

She initially planned to teach literature, but ultimately pursued a law degree at the university of North Carolina, where she met John.

The couple had four children.

Their oldest, wade, was killed in an automobile accident in 1996 at the age of 16.

"When Wade died, it was -- it was a terrible burden," she said on Larry King Live. "But it also reminded you both of the fact that you needed to grab hold of each day. You couldn't -- you couldn't just take each day for granted."


In recent years, Elizabeth authored two best-selling books and became a champion of causes involving poverty and cancer.

But always, she said, her children were her top priority: 28-year-old Cate, 12-year-old Emma Claire and 10-year-old Jack.

"It scares me the most that there's going to be a day that, you know, is likely to come before i wanted it to come where Ihave to tell these sweet children//goodbye, she said in a Nightline interview.

In an April 2008 interview with "Good Morning America's" Robin Roberts, she said wanted her children to be able to handle any situation that comes their way.

"They have to know how to fly by themselves. They have to know what to do when the wind blows them off course. And that's what's happened to me," she said. "The wind has blown me off course, but i'm kind of thinking this might be it. That, in bad times, you still keep your eye on what it was that was important to you. And you press forward with that. And if - that's all i give them, then i would have done a really great job."


In a television appearance taped in July on the "Nate Berkus show," she talked about talking about her new furniture store in North Carolina.

"It's unlike anything I've lived before. I was sort of an at-home mother for a while, and then a political wife," she said. "So now, this is the next phase and it belongs to me. It doesn't belong to any of those things in the past."

Weeks earlier, she appeared on CNN's "Larry King Live."

"I don't think that I'm special in any way, but I think most people do pull themselves together. Do what it is they need to be done," she said. "Sometimes you're thrown for a loop for a little while and then you start to reclaim."

She told King she wanted to live eight more years to see her young children grow up.

"I'd like for them to see me seeing them off in their new life. So they -- as adults, they would see me as still, a presence in their life and not as that distant memory of the -- you know, the woman playing legos with them on the floor, but somebody who was a real part of their lives," she said.