Petrolia writer and entrepreneur Dawn Stillwell has made one of her late sister’s final wishes come true.
Last year Stillwell was talking with her younger sister, Jennifer Ellis, who was in the midst of an 18-month battle against cancer. The then 49-year-old Windsor woman had been diagnosed with stage four inflammatory breast cancer in the spring of 2020 and the sisters were talking philosophically about things in life hadn’t been able to do, items on their respective ‘bucket lists’.
Ellis, a lifelong fan of Goth, punk and new wave music ever since she and her sister were kids growing up in Dover Centre, expressed regret she had never been able to go overseas to attend the legendary Wave Gotik Treffen Music Festival which occurs annually in the spring in the city of Leipzig, Germany. Attracting close to 20,000 attendees each year, the four-day festival typically features scores of bands and artists from around the world, with all-night dancing, medieval gothic gatherings, picnics, performances, exhibitions and events.
In 2020, Ellis had thought about going but the festival was shut down due to COVID-19. In 2021, her precarious health prevented her from traveling overseas.
On Nov. 13, 2021, Ellis’ long and difficult battle with cancer came to an end, as she chose medical assistance in dying (MAID).
After mourning the loss of her beloved sister, Stillwell – who wrote a book about Jennifer and her family’s experience with MAID entitled Jennifer’s Choice: A Right to Die Story – never quite forgot the conversation she had with her sibling, when she expressed her regret in not attending the storied German festival.
“In the months leading up to her dated death, we were kind of talking about life and one of her biggest regrets was not taking the time to go to this music festival,” she said. “It’s kind of this new wave, punk rock, Goth sort of thing, and Jennifer had always been into that sort of thing, ever since we were growing up as teenagers.”
“Unfortunately, she never got to fulfill that dream of going,” Stillwell continued. “After we got past her death, I was thinking ‘wouldn’t it be cool if someone took her ashes over there, so she could posthumously attend the festival’? So what I did was reach out to a group on Facebook for the festival and told them about Jennifer’s desire to attend and my idea to bring her ashes there.”
Though she received positive responses, Stillwell was informed that fulfilling her plan would be a fairly onerous task.
“Somebody wrote back and told me that the rules in Germany about handling cremated remains are pretty strict, so I might not want to do that,” she said. “But then they suggested that someone could print out a picture (of Jennifer), they could bring that to the festival and that hopefully she would be there in spirit as well.”
With the idea to finally bring Jennifer to the Wave Gotik Treffen Music Festival officially hatched, Stillwell said, all she need was a few volunteers to make it work.
People came out of the woodworks to help Stillwell and her late sister, she said.
“People started responding, telling me that they really wanted to do this,” she said. “The first person was a fellow by the name of Helmut, he’s spending the summer touring all the festivals in Germany and Austria, and he offered to take Jennifer’s picture to all of them. So he started sending me pictures at the end of April.
“There was another lady by the name of Maureen, who told me that her band was supposed to be playing but she would definitely take the picture with her,” Stillwell continued. “And there was another woman by the name of Peggy, she said she’d love to bring Jennifer’s photo with her.”
In the days leading up to the 2022 festival, which took place between June 3 and 6, Stillwell got in touch with all of the volunteers who offered to carry Ellis’ picture around with them.
“I connected with all of them before the festival to make sure they were all going forward with this and they were all happy to do it,” she said. “Over the course of the weekend they sent me all these wonderful pictures of Jennifer with all different people and bands and at the concerts.
“I thought that it was a really cool thing for all these strangers were kind enough to do that for my sister, who was never able to go,” Stillwell added. “I realize this (festival) is kind of a big thing in new wave/punk circles, and just the fact that they would take the time to carry this picture with them and take pictures was amazing.”
All the pictures are available to see at https://jenniferellis.org/wave-gotik-treffen-festival/.
“There were so many other stories too,” Stillwell said. “One of the people with Jennifer’s photo shared my sister’s story with another lady who had just been through her own cancer ordeal. She said she thought this was a wonderful thing what we were doing for my sister.”
In the end, Stillwell got the chance to finally see her little sister achieve her dream of attending the Wave Gotik Treffen Music Festival, thanks to the generosity and kindness of complete strangers.
The whole experience was an unexpected yet heartwarming tribute to Jennifer, she said, a caring and compassionate soul who would have loved what these people had done.
“It all came about last August or September,” she said. “I was visiting with her and she pulled up these YouTube videos of the festival and said to me ‘yeah, I guess that’s not going to happen’…I just had in my heart that maybe we could kind of make it happen for her. And I guess we finally did.”