You--yes, YOU--can participate in Melanie's March, even if you can't be there.

Please go to melaniesmarch.com to find out how you can make a difference in one of the most memorable and powerful nationwide rallies yet for meaningful health care reform. The march was organized by Health Care for America Now in honor of Melanie Shouse, the St. Louis activist who died Jan. 30, having lost her 4 1/2 year battle with breast cancer after Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield refused coverage because she could not meet her $5,000 deductible.

The 135-mile march from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., is underway now and will end with a rally on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Feb. 24. As the march progresses and more people join, we are encouraged by Melanie's tireless efforts for economic justice, the environment, clean energy, public transportation and, most of all, affordable, quality health care for every American. Melanie did not live long enough to see the fight won. Yet she died peacefully, confident that it would be won.

We who loved her and knew her have dedicated ourselves to making certain that her cause is finished and her soul is rested. We intend to finish this fight for her and for every one of the 37 million Americans who have no health insurance. We will complete her mission for each of the 45,000 citizens who die each year for lack of health insurance. We will bring this war for health care to a close the only way it can end, the way it must end: we will win it.

When we arrive at the steps of the U.S. Capitol, we will hold a short vigil and leave 1,000 red carnations strewn upon those magnificent, broad altars of democracy--a reminder to those who make our laws of the 1,000 Americans who died for lack of health insurance in just the short eight days of Melanie's March.

Nearly a dozen rallies are being held along the I-95 corridor connecting Philly to D.C. If you live near one of these events, you should come. A clickable map of the locations is available on the Melanie's March web site, with details about time and place.

Melanie was a student of history and understood that no great freedoms are granted, no rights won without sacrifice, time and unwavering adherence to principle. She quoted Paine, Jefferson, Lincoln and scores of others with ease, as if their words were her very mother tongue. And she took to heart these words that transformed the Declaration of Independence from a mere document into a living oath: "... with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor."

Total commitment. That is what it will take to march to the finish line for Melanie.

So we march. March with us, whether by calling Congress in a "virtual march" from your home, or by stretching your legs along the great expanse connecting the site of our First Continental Congress to the Congress in whose hands the fate of health care reform now rests. Melanie needs you. We need you. History summons you.

How say you? What is your reply?