Cathy Hainer; Wrote Chronicle of Her Cancer Battle

Cathy Hainer, a USA Today reporter who wrote eloquently about her battle with breast cancer, has died.

The 38-year-old Hainer died of the disease in a hospice Tuesday night. Breast cancer killed her mother four years ago.

Hainer began keeping a diary, much of which was published in the newspaper, after her cancer was diagnosed in January 1998. The final entry, Dec. 6, quoted lines that are generally attributed to Henry Van Dyke, comparing death to the sailing of a ship into the distance.

“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.”

In between the first and last entries were the ups and downs--the treatments, the loss of hair, the prayers.

“Jan. 11, 1999: Great news! The scans were clear. One year after diagnosis, I was officially declared NED: no evidence of disease.”

And then--”April 20, 1999: Hearing that you have multiple lesions in your brain is not an easy thing. . . . One insight I’ve had is that it’s not death itself that’s hard; it’s giving up life that’s the tough part.”

A native of Virginia Beach, Va., Hainer graduated from the College of William & Mary and worked at New York magazine before joining USA Today in 1990.

Survivors include her father and stepmother, Stan and Shirley Hainer of Virginia Beach, and three brothers.