Blessed by a presence who always gave

Sheryl M. Mullan's fund-raising efforts ended March 7 when she lost her nine-year battle with breast cancer. But the 52-year-old Billerica woman, a mother of three and a nurse at Burlington's Lahey Clinic, had a rare quality about her, and left the world much richer, said her husband, John P. Mullan.

"I don't know what it was, but if you could bottle it, the world would be a better place," he said.

The hours before her passing were marked by what some would consider a miracle. When doctors told John that Sheryl's time had come, he started making calls. The family gathered at the hospital, and the Red Cross got in touch with son Thomas - who was stationed at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio - to help with preparations for an emergency leave. Thomas's aunt, Deborah Squeri of Burlington, helped him navigate airline bureaucracy to get home.

In her final hours, Sheryl slipped into a coma and was given last rites. Doctors didn't expect her to make it through the night.

"Tommy called from the airport, saying 'I'm on my way home,' " John said. "I told him he wasn't going to make it, and he said 'Let me talk to her.'

"I put the phone to her ear, her eyes opened up, and she says 'Tommy's coming home,' " John said. Hearing his mother's voice made it all more vital for Thomas to get there. "I almost burst out in tears," he said. He made arrangements in a daze, his only thoughts to see his mother again.

It was an uncommon rally, doctors told her husband. In the hours following Thomas's call, friends and family had gathered to bid farewell. Surprising everyone, Sheryl woke to the smell of coffee and asked for an onion bagel. She was waiting for Thomas.

By evening, Sheryl sent her husband to pick up Chinese take-out, and when he returned, "Tommy was sitting with her," John said.

Mother and son had a few lucid hours before Sheryl slipped back into a coma and doctors let her leave the hospital to go to her Billerica home, her last wish. The volunteer who loved to give died the next evening.

The number of people she touched was evident at her funeral, when every branch of the military was in attendance, along with six motorcycle clubs in colors, her husband said.

John Mullan, a Boston police officer, couldn't say what drove his wife, a Winthrop native who grew up in Saugus. Her volunteering started when her sons Patrick, 24, Thomas, 22, and Joseph, 16, were young and she pitched in for Billerica's Pop Warner football team, the snack shack at Shawsheen Valley Technical High, and at PTA meetings.

Years later, when Patrick deployed to Iraq with the Marines, it was tough on Sheryl, John recalled. "They're all kids," he remembered her lamenting.

For the six years that Patrick served in the Marines, Sheryl offered her support on the home front, her cancer in remission. She sent huge packages to Patrick's unit every few weeks.

"It was the biggest thing we had," Patrick said. "Packages from home, that was all."

She joined the Key Volunteer Network, a group that coordinates with Marine families. She was an organizer of Operation Troop Support in Dedham, helping to send 4,000 to 5,000 packages a year overseas, and volunteered at the Sawtelle Family Hospice House in Reading.

Choking up with emotion, John described her big heart: "She was like a person that collects lost puppies."

Two years ago, her cancer flared again, and six months later, it spread to her brain. "I knew it was bad. But she never stopped," John said.

In one of her last efforts, as first lady of the Enforcers MC Boston Chapter motorcycle club, Sheryl jumped on the back of her husband's Harley and rode to raise money for one of the oldest veterans' care facilities in the country, the Soldiers' Home in Chelsea. Though Sheryl soldiered through the banquet, "A week later she was in a wheelchair," John said.

Recently, John Mallon made the sentimental journey back to the site of his first meeting with Sheryl. "If you can believe, I met an Italian girl in an Irish pub in Malden," he said. The club was no longer there.

"We were together a long time, but not long enough," John said.

Thomas is preparing to deploy to Guam, and Patrick said he'll take up volunteering in his mother's name the next time his old unit, the 125 Bravo Company, deploys. Joseph, still at home, was there lending a hand when his mother was wrapping packages or planning fund-raisers.

"She always wanted to help people," he said. "I don't know why exactly; she just always wanted to help."