Mother motivated to fundraise after death of her son
It doesn’t upset Cecelia Mullin when people talk about the son she lost to a brain tumor.
What would bother her is if the talking stopped.
Keeping her son’s memory alive has been the motivating force behind her fundraising efforts since Kevin Mullin died in 2001 at age 17.
For 13 years, Mrs. Mullin organized the Kevin Mullin Memorial 5K Run/Walk. When the challenge proved too much several years ago, she shifted to a virtual run and added wine and beer tastings.
With help from family members (including husband Phil and sons Chris and Dan) and friends, she has raised $305,000, all donated for brain-tumor research.
“I just don’t want people to ever forget Kevin,” said Mullin, now 69, a retired physical therapist. “I feel like if I stop doing stuff, people might forget him.”
Reminders of the Mullins’ youngest child are easy to spot in the couple’s home in Blacklick, notably in two framed photos in the living room.
One rests above a computer desk, framed alongside “Remember Me,” a poem by Judith Karen Bulock.
“A lot of people say they don’t want to bring (Kevin) up because they don’t want to make her sad,” said Noreen Buckley, Cecelia’s close friend. “But it has helped her always — and it still does — to talk about him.”
The other photo, on top of the piano, depicts Kevin in a cowboy hat, worn to cover his treatment-ravaged head. In both photos, he smiles broadly.
“He was a crazy little kid,” Mrs. Mullin said.
Dan Mullin, the middle brother, remembers Kevin’s knack for memorizing movie scenes, his good grades in school and his willingness to help others.
“He was definitely the most outgoing of the three of us,” said Dan, 37, who lives in Gahanna. “And he had a great sense of humor.”
The humor didn’t fade — even in December 2000, midway through his junior year at Bishop Hartley High School, when the tumor was diagnosed. Mullin had been in a minor car crash and the next day complained of a loss of peripheral vision. A visit to the eye doctor prompted an MRI, which revealed a rare, grade 3 astrocytoma, which has a low cure rate.
Told his tumor was the size of a lemon, Kevin started calling himself “lemonhead,” a name that endures on the website of the Kevin J. Mullin Foundation for Brain Tumor Research (lemonhead.org).
Treatment did little to slow the cancer, and he died less than a year later, in August 2001.
Almost immediately, Mrs. Mullin threw herself into organizing the 5K run, with the inaugural fundraiser taking place in April 2002. It generated about $20,000.
She was motivated in part, she said, by a remark Kevin had made the previous spring while participating in Race for the Cure, a benefit for breast-cancer research.
“He said, ‘I wish all these people were doing this for brain-tumor research,’” Mrs. Mullin recalled.
Family members marveled at the energy she exhibited, from finding sponsors to arranging security.
“She’s a very driven person,” said Mr. Mullin, 69, a retired lawyer. “When she wants to do something, she really goes all out.”
Thirteen years later, though, the challenging logistics of setting up a race and searching for help and sponsors prompted Mrs. Mullin to switch gears.
In 2015, she organized an online fundraiser she calls a “virtual race” and has since added the wine and beer tastings. (In May, a beer tasting raised $2,500.)
The money is donated to three organizations: the American Brain Tumor Association, the Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and Ohio State University.
At Ohio State, the money has been going directly to fund work by Dr. Rolf Barth, who has been researching a new brain-tumor treatment program called boron neutron capture therapy.
Since 2010, Barth said, he has received between $5,000 and $10,000 a year from the Mullins.
“She (Cecelia) has done a great job, and it does make a difference,” he said.
Fundraising for brain-cancer research is challenging, the Mullins and Barth said, in part because the disease can often be fatal within a year or two of diagnosis. Fewer long-term survivors means fewer opportunities to generate awareness and money.
“Most people with brain tumors are going to die, so there are estates to plan and issues that need to be addressed,” Barth said. “Most don’t do what Cecelia did — and that’s to follow up and say, ‘OK, I’ve had this devastating loss of my son, but now we’re going to try to do something to help other people.’”