On Wednesday, former President Jimmy Carter announced that he had liver cancer that has metastasized to other parts of his body. The 90-year-old former president said in a statement: “Recent liver surgery revealed that I have cancer that now is in other parts of my body. I will be rearranging my schedule as necessary so I can undergo treatment by physicians at Emory Healthcare.”

We wish the best for President Carter. Cancer has reached its ugly tentacles into the lives of all Americans, whether personally or in the lives of their loved ones. It will be a grand day with this scourge of humankind can be eradicated.

Jimmy Carter was the president who made the earliest impact upon my life as a young American adult. When he challenged incumbent President Gerald Ford in 1976 — and won — it was my first time to vote in a Presidential election. I was attending graduate school at the time, but despite living in an academic milieu, and also having witnessed the Watergate scandal which tore down Richard Nixon’s presidency, I did not vote for Carter. The influence of my Republican parents clung to me, and I voted for Gerald Ford.