NIU lost a great friend, an excellent student and an ambitious leader in July when Jen Onan died.

Onan, a Student Association senator, a photojournalism and Spanish major and political science minor died of lung cancer after a five year bout with various types of cancer.

“Jeno definitely made an impression on all of the people she met at Northern,” said Jennifer Herrick, a friend of three years.

“She wasn’t bitter about having cancer,” said Lara Cipolla, Onan’s freshman roommate. “It was something she accepted.”

“No matter what, I never spoke to her any different because of her illness,” Herrick said. “I didn’t treat her special because she didn’t want me to. She always promised that she wouldn’t stop fighting the sickness, but she never promised that she wouldn’t die.”

Onan lived on the political science floor in Douglas Hall. Last year, she was chosen Senator of the Year, Cipolla said.

When Onan met Cipolla, she was supposedly in remission. But that April, she found out that it had reappeared in another spot.

Onan was on every kind of treatment possible, Cippola said. Every April, she was tested on the treatment’s progress and doctors always found that the cancer was back, Cipolla said.

“Every time it happened she would come back and finish any incompletes … and still get As because she was a straight-A student,” Cippola said.

“She was an incredible human being,” said Hillary Finne, a friend of three years. “She was always busy dying and living at the same time. She got mad sometimes because I was going to live and she was going to die.”

Finne talked to Onan four days before she died about the funeral. She remembers Onan saying, “It will be just like the ‘Big Chill,’ except I won’t be committing suicide.”

Herrick said she played a record for Onan that she thought would tell Onan how she felt about her. Onan left the room right after hearing the song.

Herrick said she thought she made things worse because Onan never mentioned the song again to Herrick.

After the funeral, Finne told Herrick that Onan had mentioned the song to her. She said Onan could accept her death, but wasn’t ready for her friends to accept it and Herrick’s playing the song meant she already had.

“The greatest thing in Jen’s life was that she did what she wanted to do,” Finne said. “Her friends felt sorry for her more than she did.”

“She never let her sickness stop her from doing things,” Cipolla said.

Finne said the funeral was the happiest one she ever attended. Onan wrote her own eulogy. “It (the eulogy) was funny,” Finne said. “And after the funeral we sat around and told old stories.”

It was something Onan would have liked. “(Her) biggest fear was that everyone would forget her,” Finne said.

“Jennifer was one of those students who made teaching a rewarding experience,” said Gary Glenn, an associate professor of political science.

“She had a gifted intellect,” Glenn said. “She was eager to force you to think your argument through in order to better her clarity of the argument.”

Onan relied on an oxygen tank all summer and became increasingly weak, Cippola said. On July 16, Jennifer Onan died in her own home because she wanted to be with her family and friends as much as she could.

“She was somebody very special,” Glenn said.