BANGOR, Maine — The final entry of Erin McGrath Woolley's online blog hints at how powerfully she fought, and how unsparingly she saw, the cancer menacing her.
"I wait for you to start speaking, stare at you for something remarkable to come out of your mouth as I sit there hooked up to the pinkish liquid. But then I realize I had already heard the most remarkable thing: the cancer cells in my body have become so smart that they have taught themselves to pump chemo out of them," she wrote. "They have survived, against my will, against all the chemo, against all the tears and the pain, and the lost pounds, they have grown. We have sent poison into them for nine months now. It is really hard to believe."
"It's like being swept into a horrible time warp where your life is no longer your own but belongs to some time-space continuum that has you trapped," she added in the entry dated Dec. 2, 2009. "And I have been trying so hard to find the right access code to escape — but there are so many combinations."
Woolley, who died of cancer on March 16, 2010, at age 26, understood the pain of others with the same kind of awareness. About 300 people celebrated Woolley's spirit and compassion with the fourth-annual Erin's Run, A Race to End Domestic Violence, on Saturday, her friend Ben Sprague said.
"She was a very self-reflective person and that same spirit she applied to her relationships with other people. It was a very natural thing for people to come to her with problems," Sprague said Saturday. "She cared more for others than she did for herself in every aspect of her life. She was always using that incredible energy of hers to take care of others and to improve their lives."
Woolley worked for a year at Spruce Run, a domestic violence prevention center in Bangor, before enrolling at Vermont Law School. Woolley died shortly before receiving her diploma and was posthumously awarded a Juris Doctor degree, according to a biography on her at the Erin's Run website.
The event featured a 5K race and 1K fun run for children who followed a course that began and ended near the Bangor Waterfront on Front Street. It raised close to $10,000, said Sprague, a Bangor City Council member.
A total of 225 runners participated, Sprague said, including about 50 members of the University of Maine swim teams. Woolley swam at UMaine as an undergraduate.
About $40,000 has been raised by the event since it began, Sprague said.
Race proceeds will go to Spruce Run and the The Erin M. Woolley Scholarship Fund. Spruce Run offers a 24-hour hotline, emergency shelter, transitional housing, legal services and support groups to victims of domestic violence. The annual scholarship supports an underclassman member of UMaine's swimming and diving teams that best embodies Woolley's dedication and spirit. The University of Maine Athletic Boosters organization oversees the scholarship.
Source: Erin's Run raises $10,000 for Bangor domestic violence shelter, scholarship
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