Pamela Jean Zwolinski, 28, died Dec. 17, 2003, of cancer.

She was born Jan. 18, 1975, in Renton to Patricia Amelia and Eugene Alben Zwolinski. She came to Whidbey Island at age 5. She made friends easily and loved living in Langley. She developed a strong sense of caring for animals, and often nursed sick and abandoned animals back to health. She also had a strong faith in a merciful and forgiving God, and that showed in the way she lived her life.

Because of Carl Westling, a South Whidbey High School science teacher, she developed an interest in hands-on research. She attended Washington State University and was a member of Alpha Delta Pi sorority. After receiving a bachelor’s degree in zoology, Miss Zwolinski moved to Langley with a college friend, Jen Hansen, and worked at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in pediatric oncology.

In 1993 she suffered a severe case of Guillian-Barre Syndrome, a neurological disorder. As she was recovering from the weakness and pain of that, she went to work at the University of Washington as an administrator in the dean’s office of the College of Arts and Sciences.

In October 2002 she met her true love, George Pulikkathara. Over the next year they became engaged in Paris and were planning a wedding in May in Seattle. She was scheduled to start a master’s degree program in child psychology at City University, Bellevue. On Dec. 8, 2002, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, and fought hard and bravely through it.

She is survived by her parents; a sister, Jennifer Mills, and her husband, Darren, and their child, Cyras; and her fiance, George Pulikkathara, of Redmond.

A funeral mass was conducted Monday at St. Hubert Catholic Church, Langley, with the Rev. Rick Spicer officiating.

Arrangements were by Visser Funeral Home, Langley.