After Sarah Mandel passed away earlier this year, her moving farewell was announced through a TikTok video that has since gone viral, amassing over 2.6 million views within a month.
The nearly two-minute montage of video clips and photos captures moments from Mandel’s life, including her 42nd birthday celebration, practicing yoga in a hospital room, holding a copy of her memoir “Little Earthquakes,” and singing with one of her two daughters. The video is a poignant tribute to her life and journey.
“If you’re reading these words right now, then I have died,” Mandel’s message begins, overlaid as text on the video. “I wrote this message the week I was told I had weeks to months to live.”
“Only a year ago, I never in a million years would have thought I would want my death announced on social media,” she continued, sharing her surprise at finding solace and community on TikTok during the most challenging days of her cancer battle. She expressed gratitude to her supporters for “holding [her] hand.”
“I am heartbroken that I am leaving this life well before my plans, most of all because of my girls and my beloved Derek,” she wrote, referring to her husband. She ended with a heartfelt “I love you” to her daughters, Sophie and Siena, and a clip of herself reading from her memoir: “We are creatures who crave certainty — but life, it turns out, is a study in uncertainty.”
Mandel’s husband, Derek Rodenhausen, revealed to “Good Morning America” that the video came as a surprise to him. “It was just so loving and beautiful and kind of just amazing… but it was kind of like, ‘Wow, Sarah,’ doing that in that moment, it was crazy,” he recalled.
Rodenhausen explained that his wife was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer in 2017 while pregnant with their second daughter, Siena. Her six-year battle with cancer was marked by both hopeful and devastating moments, from periods of being disease-free to the cancer’s return and spread to her brain.
Throughout her journey, Mandel aimed to share her deeply personal experience to help others. “I think she deeply felt that she wanted to help people,” Rodenhausen said. “It can be [a] lonely experience to go through, having six and a half years of cancer battle, and I think what she found was that by being open about it, a lot of people would kind of then open up to her and share their experiences.”
As her condition worsened, Mandel turned to writing her memoir and later to social media to connect with others. She retired from her psychology practice but remained committed to transparency about her journey. “The thing that was important to her was she kind of wanted to be very transparent about what she was going through and make it real to the world, even things that, you know, sometimes, people can feel like they don’t want to [share or are] embarrassed by or don’t want to talk about,” Rodenhausen said.
By sharing her story, Mandel transformed a lonely battle into a shared community experience. Her openness not only made her journey less isolating but also provided comfort and support to others facing similar challenges.