Honoring Sarah Portlock Fellman '03

Over the years, whenever Sarah Portlock Fellman’s life got tough, she would always step back, take a deep breath, and draw on the words and spirit of her motto: “Head down. Power through.”
That’s unbridled optimism, folks. It’s a glass-half-full approach to the ups and downs that she – and everyone else, for that matter – inevitably encounter. In her thinking, no disappointment was too harsh, no challenge too great.
 
The 2003 Collegiate School graduate developed that attitude almost from birth. Growing up, you see, she learned from her parents Nancy Raybin and Bill Portlock this simple, unequivocal truth: “If you fall down, get back up. Be resilient.”
 
Tough classes in school? Find a way to excel. Things not going your way? Keep smiling. Stay the course. Be true to yourself. Professional setback, like that layoff when the New York Sun folded? Dust off your résumé, hit the pavement, and find your next job.
 
Sarah always did.
 
Journalism was in her blood. She served as editor-in-chief of the Match at Collegiate and the Washington Square News at New York University, whence she graduated in 2007. In 2010, she earned a degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism where, by the way, she met Sam Fellman, a Naval Academy alumnus, fellow student, and kindred spirit whom she married on June 2, 2013.
 
Her career took her to the Associated Press, Newsday, The Star-Ledger (based in Newark), the Brooklyn Paper, and, in 2012, The Wall Street Journal, first as a reporter, then a multimedia producer, and, finally, in September 2016, day editor.
 
While Sarah enjoyed writing, she also enjoyed her leadership roles. She was truly interested in people. She believed everyone had a story, and she loved telling those stories with clarity, depth, and scrupulous detail.
 
More important than her obvious skill and facility with words was her human touch. She was perceived as an encourager, nurturer, advocate for new employees, and mentor. Friends and family have described her as smart, energetic, adventuresome, funny, engaging, warm, kind, poised, and generous with her time and talents.
 
Drawing on her underpinnings, she also displayed strong-willed determination, indefatigability, and courage, attributes that served her well from the moment a cerebral aneurysm burst on March 31, 2017, and she was rushed to the Mt. Sinai Medical Center where doctors worked feverishly and heroically to perform the miracle that would save her life.
 
Sarah’s medical crisis came with no warning whatsoever. There was no family history that suggested that a problem might arise. The cause of her aneurysm and the reason it ruptured remain unknown.
 
Sarah was seven months pregnant at the time, and at 6:28 that Friday evening, her daughter Aviva – Hebrew for Springtime – was born. Two months premature, Aviva weighed two pounds, 11 ounces. She would spend 100 days in the NICU.
 
When her condition stabilized, Sarah was transferred to the JFK Johnson Rehabilitation Institute in Edison, NJ, where she began a tedious, arduous regimen of physical, occupational, speech, and recreational therapy. Though weak and limited in her ability to speak and move, she was a full and active participant in her treatment and, through her positive attitude, earned the love and respect of her medical team.
 
She envisioned a better day, she held out hope, but her doctors and family, though guardedly optimistic, understood the gravity of her brain trauma and the reality of her situation. She was making progress when she passed away unexpectedly on November 6.
 
Tributes abounded. Friends held poignant celebrations of her life at Columbia and in Washington, D.C. On Tuesday, June 26, Community Ideas Stations (WCVE-FM) will honor her with Sarah Portlock Fellman Day. Inspired by the Raybin-Portlock Family Challenge, the organization is raising funds to support student internships to support its news team and help it understand how to connect more effectively with a younger audience. Plans are in the works to honor her at Collegiate when the Class of 2003 convenes this fall to celebrate its 15th reunion.
 
Her family has found the commemorations moving and therapeutic. Knowing that she so deeply impacted others buoys them. It’s their hope, as well, that her struggle will inspire the medical community to intensify its efforts to understand and treat traumatic brain injuries.
 
Seven months have passed.
 
Aviva is a healthy, thriving toddler who brings joy to her family. She looks like her mom. Their baby pictures are strikingly similar.  
 
Sam has remained in New York where he recently took a job with Business Insider as senior editor focusing on military and defense issues. Nancy and Bill have returned to their home in Bowling Green and have gone back to work, she as a management consultant for strategic planning and fundraising for non-profit clients and he as an environmental educator with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. Sarah’s brother Nathan has just completed his MBA at Yale and is embarking upon a career in architecture and business.
 
They’re still in a processing phase, though. They’re grieving but managing. Recovery follows no schedule. It’s one day at a time, one step at a time, mostly forward, sometimes back. Time helps. Memories endure. Emotions remain.
 
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