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Cathy Hainer 1961-1999
A chronicle of cancer that moved a nation
 Cathy Hainer (USA TODAY) |
ARLINGTON, Va. - Cathy Hainer, the reporter for USA TODAY who inspired millions of readers with her breast cancer diary, died of the disease at a northern Virginia hospice Dec. 14 (1999). She was 38. In her stories, she shared with readers not only her physical battle with cancer and its treatment, but also her personal life - buying a house, getting engaged - and her shifting outlook on life and death.
Contributions in her name will be used to establish the Cathy Hainer Book Fund at the Swem Library, College of William & Mary.
Checks should be made payable to The Endowment Association, College of William & Mary (earmarked for the Hainer Book Fund), and sent to: Associate Vice President for Development, Box 8795, Williamsburg, Va., 23187-8795.
Excerpted
from Cathy's last entry in her diary, Nov. 11-19, 1999
"I take solace in thinking about
something a friend recently showed me. This parable was found on the body of an American
Jewish soldier, Col. David Marcus, who was one of those who helped to form the first army
of the state of Israel"
"I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails in the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength and I stand and watch her until at length she is only a ribbon of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other. Then someone at my side says, 'There! She's gone!'
"Gone where? Gone from my sight - that is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side, and just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of destination. Her diminished size is in me, not in her, and just at the moment when someone at my side says, 'There! She's gone!' there are other voices ready to take up the glad shout, 'There! She comes!' And that is dying."
