Heidi Satterthwaite wanted to go out with a bang.
Before her death last year, the 34-year-old made an unusual request — she wanted a party. Rather, she wanted a celebration of her life with an expansive guest list of all her family and friends.
“I would describe it as an exclamation point at the end of a sentence. The sentence of her life,” Jenna Satterthwaite, Heidi’s older sister, told BBC Radio 4’s “Woman’s Hour.”
“I guess you could call it closure.”
In 2018, Heidi was diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome, or MDS, a rare type of cancer that occurs when blood-forming cells found in bone marrow are abnormal.
When planning the end-of-life extravaganza — which Jenna likened to a wedding with speeches, dancing and catering — the family braced for the worst, only expecting a handful of loved ones to show up.
Instead, they were pleasantly shocked when hundreds showed up.
“So it was really special to come together and kind of close that sentence as a group and say, ‘This was her life, she lived it well,’ ” said Jenna about the party for her sister Heidi Satterthwaite (pictured). Facebook / Jenna Satterthwaite
Talking with BBC Radio 4, Jenna said it was like an “exclamation point” on the end of her sister’s life. BBC
Heidi wanted to celebrate her life well-lived with her close friends and family before her death. Twitter / @JennaSchmenna“To our utter surprise and delight, 200 people showed up at the last minute, in the middle of the summer,” she said.
“People canceled vacations, hopped on planes, rented cars, they made it happen and they showed up for her to say their goodbyes.”
The “magical and pain-filled celebration of her life,” Jenna said, also included a dance with Heidi and her husband, who swayed to the same song played at their wedding.
On X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, Jenna penned a bittersweet poem titled “Advice for the Dying.” In it, she advised to host a party, not a funeral, for those who have “the curse of advance notice,” because funerals aren’t as “fun.”
Despite thinking only a dozen people would show, hundreds arrived at the party. Facebook / Jenna Satterthwaite
Heidi and her husband also shared a bittersweet dance to the same song played at their wedding. Facebook / Jenna Satterthwaite“It was that moment when you pause to acknowledge a beautiful life — and we don’t do that often, we’re bad at celebrating, we’re always looking to the next thing and shifting goal posts,” Jenna told BBC Radio 4.
“So it was really special to come together and kind of close that sentence as a group and say, ‘This was her life, she lived it well.’ Exclamation point.”
