The Totally RAD Foundation

Our Story

To everything there is a season and the seasons pass by and go down, one by one. So orderly, so unremarkably, that often we scarcely notice the day of their passing. It was on just such a day, on the final day of summer, September 21 that we lost our daughter, our sister, our mother, our aunt, our true friend, Rebecca Dahl. Rebecca passed quietly and peacefully, surrounded by family and bathed in the love that has poured out over her throughout her life and her struggle with breast cancer. Rebecca was born on June 1, 1979. She grew up in Ventura and graduated from Ventura High School. She married, and was blessed to have had four beautiful, thoughtful, wonderful children. Rebecca faced all of life’s struggles with courage, grace, and dignity.

Through all of her physical and emotional struggles, she grew wiser and more contemplative. Some have said that she became wise far beyond her 39 years. While contemplating her final days, she condensed her thoughts and reflections on her life, her feelings for family and friends, her love and hopes for her children into a few perfectly chosen and simply conveyed words. She told each of us exactly what we meant to her, and for many of us it was just what we needed to hear. We needed to know that she was at peace and she recognized that need in each of us. As she lay dying, she prepared these few words for us, a small gift that reassured us she would be at peace and when the time came for her to leave us, she was.

While it is true her passing leaves a hole in all our hearts, it is with the love she shared with us and the many cherished memories each and every one of us has of her that we will remember, and try to fill those holes. Those who will miss her everyday include her parents, Allen and Daphne Dahl, her children, Ephraim, Tobias, Daphne, and Ezekiel, her sisters and brothers and their families, Julie Dahl-Nicolle (Geoff, Ethan, Ella), Laura Powers (Scott, Parker, Georgia), Cyndi Gilbert (Von, Zoey & Bentley, Isaac, Caleb), Nathan Dahl (Deann, Cooper, Ava, Ryker, Tucker) and Thor Dahl (Heather, Peyton, Sylvia). Her many close friends will miss her too. And they will remember her for her wit, her fire, her love, her devotion, and her compassion.