Melissa Ann Fox

Melissa Ann (Spivak) Fox, Malkah bat Yisrael v’Ganit, 64, died peacefully on March 29th, 2025. She was surrounded by her family, and was looking out upon her beloved Cape Cod, while the crocuses were just beginning to bloom. She is survived by the love of her life, Michael; her daughters, Mollie and Zoe; her sons-in-law, Jason and Patrick; her grandchildren, Theo, Josie, and Rafa; her sisters, Sarah and Jane; and countless nieces, nephews, grand-nieces and grand-nephews. She is predeceased by her beloved parents, Irwin and Janice Spivak.

Melissa lived her life full of superlatives, and was known to declare everything “the best thing she’d ever experienced in her life”. Above all, she lived for music, Cape Cod, books and activism, and her Jewish family. In her love of each of these things, “passion” doesn’t even begin to describe the energy and ferocity with which she dedicated herself.

The daughter of two jazz aficionados, Melissa always kept jazz close to her heart. However, her true love was rock; she loved to quiz her daughters about classic rock songs as they came on the radio, and would then let them know what grade she had been in when it came out, and at what school dance it was played. She loved all rock music, but her lifelong love was the Rolling Stones. Ever since she received her diagnosis, she was known to declare that she had to “stay alive to see Mick” as the Stones continued to announce tours, and— almost literally— broke herself out of the hospital to see them for the last time. Melissa curated an impressively long playlist to play in her last days, and towards the end, drifted off to “Wild Horses”, “Melissa”, “My Girl”, and Ella Fitzgerald.

Although she was born in Bayside, Queens, Melissa was a “Capegal”, as her longtime vanity license plate declared, and she lived to be on the Cape as much as possible. She loved to sail, and spent her high school years at Dennis-Yarmouth High School and racing sailboats with the Lewis Bay Yacht Club. As an adult, when she and her family were only able to spend the summers here, she got them here as soon as possible, would roll down the windows as they drove over the Sagamore Bridge so they could smell the Cape air, and would then promptly refuse to go off-Cape until the summer ended. She would go to the beach every day for as many hours as possible, between stops to Four Seas, the Brewster Book Store, and the Penny Candy Store. When she got sick, Melissa finally fulfilled her dearest wish to move back here full-time, and passed away looking out at Cape Cod Bay.

Much of Melissa’s life revolved around books, her love of children’s literature, and her tireless pursuit of literary advocacy. Children’s books were her passion; she was a local celebrity in 2000s Potomac when she worked as a bookseller at Toys Etc. with her beloved mentor Nancy Landon, and was known for her uncanny ability to recommend the perfect book for every child. She combined her political activism with her love of children’s books by beginning the nonprofit Capital BookShare, which worked to create classroom libraries for DC-area public schools in need. She always needed to be reading, talking about books, thinking about books, and surrounded by books.

Towering above everything else was Melissa’s unbelievable love for her family. She found the love of her life, Michael, and in typical Melissa fashion, had him propose to her after six weeks. After 38 wonderful years, Michael was by her side as she took her last breaths, having taken incredible care of her throughout her illness. She raised her daughters, Mollie and Zoe, with unwavering support and undying love, cheerleading through every triumph and picking them back up after every challenge. Melissa spent her whole life saying that all she wanted were grandchildren, and she was blessed with three: Theo, whose arrival saved her life by giving her the strength to fight; Josie, who kept her on her toes with every joke and silly pose; and Rafa, who made her laugh every day. Melissa, a proud Brandeis alumna, was a devoted, proud, and intellectually-engaged Jew, and made sure that her family continued in the Jewish tradition. Although she was often teased for her shockingly long Passover seder that she curated from scratch, such a tome is the perfect representation of the love and thought she poured into being Jewish, and her desire for others to really think about what it meant to be Jewish.

Melissa never should have passed away in this way. She did not like to think of herself as a “fighter”, but fight she did, going through drastic surgeries, chemotherapy, and immunotherapy to stay with her family for years beyond her prognosis. Thanks to the evils of asbestos, she spent almost 8 long years combating peritoneal mesothelioma, and although she defied her doctors’ expectations countless times, she should still have been here with us for decades longer. To honor Melissa’s memory, please make sure your lawmakers continue the fight to eradicate asbestos from our world.

But overall, in Melissa’s honor, stay on the beach just a little bit longer; stay in the car until the song is over; and recommend a damn good book.

In lieu of flowers, please send donations in Melissa’s honor to Equal Justice Initiative, Magen David Adom, the Brewster Ladies’ Library, or a charity of your choice.

May her memory be a blessing