Category: News

From Jennifer’s Bucket List

Posted on by Dawn

My sister Jennifer was always a fan of punk rock and new wave music, and being a teenager in the 80’s, there was plenty of that kind of music to groove to. It was her desire for many years to be able to go to Wave Gotik Treffen, a gothic music festival in Leipzig, Germany. But life got in the way as life does, where we don’t prioritize our bucket list items and relegate them to ‘someday’ and then suddenly, the unexpected happens. In her case, she was well enough after her cancer diagnosis to have attended in 2020, but the pandemic hit and everything was cancelled. Last year, the festival was cancelled and she was too sick to have travelled anyway, so her ‘someday’ never happened. She did express regret about that before she passed.

I joined a Facebook group for the Wave Gotik Treffen music festival, and posted about Jennifer’s wish to go and asked if they could help me find someone who might take her ashes there so that we could honour that wish. A kind woman in the group suggested that perhaps I could email a willing participant who could print the photo and take ‘Jennifer’ to the various concerts (and be willing to supply the family with photos of Jennifer’s photo at the concerts). Which I think would be easier to accommodate (not having to deal with ashes traveling with strangers and the potential issues getting them through customs), Jennifer would be there in spirit and we would have the photos as a tribute to Jennifer.

Fingers crossed that some kind soul will be willing to do this for us! I’ll keep you posted!

80’s Jennifer channeling her inner goth/new wave vibe!

So, I Wrote Another Book…

So, I Wrote Another Book…

Posted on by Dawn

The posts to the blog this year have been few and far between, and most of them have dealt with dying and death after a childhood friend passed away this summer, and my youngest sister also died, choosing medically assisted suicide rather than suffer grievously as her cancer ravaged her body.

I began to keep a grief journal as my sister chose to end curative treatments, which were making her life hell, and to avail herself of palliative care alone, noting that if her treatments made her feel so bad, who’d want to stick around for that?

As I wrote in my journal, I also Googled everything I could about her cancer as well as what medically assisted dying looked like. The government of Canada has many web pages devoted to the law that allows medically assisted dying, but the first hand accounts are few. So eventually, my journal morphed into a book that gives the reader a first row seat of what it is like to be a part of someone’s journey unto death, by choice.

The manuscript is done, edited, re-edited and I’m waiting on pre-readers to give feedback and reviews. I plan to publish by the end of January. My thanks to all those who have been a part of this process, who encouraged me and helped me bring this project to (near) completion.

I’ll update about the publish date very soon!

Another Tribute

Posted on by Dawn

This past week, I thought it might be nice if people had a place to leave messages for my sister Jen during her final days. I talked it over with her, and created the website www.jenniferellis.org. It tells her cancer story and allows people to leave comments for Jen. It can also be reworked as a memorial site later on.

So, if you know Jen and would like to say a few kind words to her, please go to the site and leave those thoughts for her. I think it would help brighten her days during the little time she has left.

www.jenniferellis.org