On June 30, 2016 my beloved wife, Rachel Wilhelm, died from metastatic breast cancer. She was 37. A memorial service will be held at Temple Rodef Shalom, in Falls Church, VA, at 10:30 am on July 6, 2016.
Rachel lived her life with joy and generosity, a love of travel, and a fierce devotion to her family. And she had a fighter’s heart when it came to battling her disease.
Rachel had asked me to write something about her passing on Facebook; something short and not too weepy (she always said I was the more emotional of the two of us). I will do my best.
Rachel grew up in Hicksville, Long Island (birthplace, she reminded me frequently of Billy Joel) and eventually left to study at the University of Maryland.
As a public-affairs officer for both NASA and NOAA, Rachel worked on issues she was passionate about, space exploration and climate change. The job also took her all over the world. From tea houses in Japan to a small town in rural Louisiana during the Gulf oil spill. I remember one time coming across her travel cache of Euros and other foreign currency and her three passports — an official federal government one, American, and German. I told her it felt like I was living with Jason Bourne.
The German passport came through citizenship she earned from her maternal grandfather, who fled Germany before the Holocaust. She wanted to use the citizenship to live overseas. So in October 2007, a month after our wedding, we moved to Cologne, Germany, where Rachel worked for the German aerospace agency.
It was, as one friend put it, an extended honeymoon, and Rachel loved the German culture, the people, and the food. Her favorite thing: enjoying the warm embrace of a weichnachmarkt while sipping gluwein.
Rachel wanted us to see as much as we could while abroad. And we did. She loved Krakow’s Jewish festival, cheered — and then cringed — at a bullfight in Madrid, drank absinthe in Amsterdam, and celebrated her 30th birthday winding through the souks of Marrakesh.
Eventually we came home and settled down in Arlington. When our son Max was born in 2011, Rachel threw herself into being a mom; she left her job and simply wrote on her LinkedIn page “full time Maxing” as her career. She offered the same devotion to our daughter Phoebe, born two years later.
They were the joy of her life. Rachel made sure Max and Phoebe’s days were filled with fun and opportunities to grow, whether it was scheduling our annual pilgrimage to see Thomas the Tank Engine, arranging playdates with other preschool moms at Temple Rodef Shalom, or organizing our street’s annual Easter Egg Hunt (perhaps a first, she noted, for a Jewish mom).
When Rachel was first diagnosed in 2014, her immediate thought was how to lessen the impact on the kids. Through surgeries, chemotherapy, and radiation treatments she made sure they stayed in their routine and that we kept active as a family.
In May, we learned that despite Rachel doing everything she possibly could, the cancer had spread to her liver. But she stayed true to herself. She made sure Phoebe had an amazing 3rd birthday party, found the strength to attend Max’s preschool graduation, and literally the day after she was diagnosed, made time to schedule a doctor’s appointment and a hair cut for me. That was Rachel. Always practical, always thinking of others.
Someone once said, “You beat cancer by how you live, why you live, and in the manner in which you live.” By that definition, Rachel beat the disease.
To honor her fight, in lieu of flowers, Rachel requested that donations be made to the Young Survival Coalition and METAvivor, two breast cancer groups she felt passionately about.
Well … this note wasn’t exactly short. Or unsentimental. If she were here, Rachel would probably tease me that I ignored her instructions like I did each time I (over)loaded the dishwasher.
So forgive me my love if I just say a bit more:
Rachel, you were the love of my life, made me a better person, and gave me two beautiful children. We were blessed to have the time we did.
I miss you. I love you. Be at peace my sweet wife. Home, home at last.
Ian Wilhelm
