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Friday, March 29
The Indiana Daily Student

Celebration of Life draws hundreds

Hannah Wilson's mother, Robin Lewis, interacts with Hannah's friends on Sunday evening at The Dunnkirk. The event was held to remember Hannah and the proceeds of the $5 cover charge will be donated to Hannah's family.

The pizza had arrived. The DJ was playing her favorite music. The peach Ciroc, another favorite of hers, had been ordered.

Gamma Phi Beta sisters decorated chalkboards with inside jokes, funny drawings and inspiring messages. Friends hung over the balcony. No one was looking at their phones. Eyes were fixed on the projector screen, which filtered through Facebook photos of a blue-eyed, brown-haired IU senior.

It was not the typical farewell. But Hannah Wilson was anything but ordinary, ?according to those at ?the memorial.

“It’s hard,” Hannah’s uncle, Tom Cutka, said as the music started playing. “But we gotta live life the way she would have wanted. You can mourn, but she would have wanted a celebration.”

With the help of DJ Matt Molewyk, Kilroy’s Dunnkirk bar hosted a benefit concert for Hannah on Sunday evening: “A Celebration of Life.” The door cover charge was $5. All proceeds went to ?Hannah’s family.

Before the show, two Gamma Phi sisters laughed as they chose pictures to put in the slideshow.

“This one! She would love this one,” one of the girls said.

Brittany Peterson downloaded the final image, a group portrait of the sorority.

“She was one of the most infectious people you could have met,” Brittany said. “She always made people feel ?welcome.”

Brittany was among the Gamma Phi IU alumni to help set up the benefit concert. She was one pledge class ?before Hannah’s.

“When we found out that Hannah chose Gamma Phi, everyone freaked out,” Brittany said. “She’ll forever be one of the most important people in everyone’s lives.”

While the girls chose the photos, Matt threw on a plaid pair of pajama pants. He and Hannah always joked about going out to the bars in their pajamas, he said.

“I have no idea what I’ll play,” Matt said minutes before the concert. “I’m just going to play what ?Hannah liked.”

Gamma Phi sisters added last minute details to a ?chalkboard.

“Her eyes,” one of them said. “Don’t forget her ?blue eyes.”

Matt looked up.

“And make sure to draw headphones!” he said.

Matt saw Hannah for the last time just a week before her death. But they talked every day last week, including Thursday. She sent him a selfie, frowning in a library.

“She studied all week so she could come out and see me play,” said Matt, who played a Dunnkirk concert Friday night. “I knew she would have wanted me to play that night, anyway.”

Matt, a member of Sigma Nu, met Hannah a few years ago through a fraternity-sorority pair. She almost always attended his shows. To have only pictures and not the real body of his lost friend behind him on stage felt surreal, ?he said.

“There were so many times in the past couple of days when I’ve tried to text her,” Matt said. “Then I remembered, shit, she’s not there.”

Ten minutes into the concert, eyes were still fixed on Hannah — including the eyes of her mother, who leaned over the balcony.

“My little Hannah Wilson could not do anything her mother wanted her to do,” Robin Wilson said, laughing. Robin is a Purdue University graduate and Delta Gamma member.

“I learned to wear red ?and white.”

Watching Hannah’s friends dance, hug and cry, Robin fought hard to stay calm. This was a celebration. No tears.

“She had the biggest heart and love for all people,” Robin said. “She was completely ?inclusive of all people.”

Robin, like everyone at the celebration, remembered the good times. With Hannah, there were many.

“Some of my most fun memories with Hannah happened here,” Robin said, adding that the two had recently been at Dunnkirk. “I was just here with her two weeks ago and we had the time of ?our lives.”

Robin was joined Sunday at the bar by her sisters, her brother-in-law and her daughter, Haley.

And, of course, Hannah’s multitude of sisters, who were dressed in bright purple ?and green.

“I understand that huge sisterhood,” said Robin, adding it was no surprise Hannah didn’t choose Delta Gamma. “Hannah was such her own, unique, individual person.”

Though Dunnkirk general manager Thayer Wood never met Hannah in person, he knew what she meant to the IU community. It was a given that the bar would have a benefit concert for ?Hannah’s family.

“The Kilroy’s family sends our deepest condolences to the Wilson family and anyone who had the privilege of knowing Hannah,” Thayer said during the show. “But tonight wasn’t about Dunnkirk, the DJ, Gamma Phi or a post Little 5 after-party ... It’s about giving the people who cared about Hannah a chance to come to a place she enjoyed visiting and remembering her for who she was.”

Hannah would not have wanted anything more, Gamma Phi sister and friend ?Jessie Buck said.

“We all joked that she would be hating on us if she knew how much we have been crying in the past few days,” Jessie said. “She would have wanted her life to ?be celebrated.”

The benefit concert will become an annual event, every Sunday evening after the Little 500 race, according ?to the bar.

As upbeat as the night was, eventually, Hannah’s mother could not hold back the tears. Leaning against the dark wood walls of the bar, she shook her head.

“I’m so tired of seeing ‘IU girl dead’ and ‘IU girl slain,’” Robin said. “I don’t want to be known forever as the mother of a dead girl. I want to live my life as the mother of the most amazing ?woman.”

With the celebration, Hannah will be remembered for the lives she touched, Thayer said. Her life at IU was a daily celebration, Robin added.

“She loved every part of this school,” Robin said with a smile. “That was always one of her biggest obstacles, knowing that it was all going to be over in two weeks.”

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