My story is, like the stories of others are likely to be, mainly ramblings about one experience, as I attempt to relate it to you and understand it myself at the same time.
The story is one of a very close friend of mine. In fact, I considered him a "best friend", and he considered me the same, inviting me to be "best man" at his wedding. We went to uni together, got involved in paganism together, shared many of the same uni classes, as well as a passion of music - so much so that we wrote songs together and jammed on a regular basis. He was very talented on the electric guitar, and his songs, although a little raw, were full of experience and emotion. He was someone who probably would have a name for himself by now in the music industry, at least on the local level, if it wasn't for the fates having a different idea of his destiny. On a spiritual level, he was a wiccan and an alchemist - doing amazing things with herbs and oils for incenses. He was a genuine and caring person, who seemed to have a lot to offer the world.
In about 1994, he became very ill with brain cancer, and fought it hard for several months with radio and chemotherapy. What amazed me is that during this time he took the opportunity to develop his alchemical skills, and his understanding of the magickal arts became truly amazing - very kabbalistic, very complex, yet very powerful at the same time. He told me that he wasn't afraid of dying, having dealt with that issue soon after being diagnosed, but he was afraid of hurting others through his death (if, or when it happened). After a while, he recovered somewhat, and the cancer was deemed to be in remission. Life went on.
In 1995, I moved away from the city where we lived to chase a girl. Several months later, I got word that the cancer had come back. I was broke and struggling to find work, and although I occasionally found the time and money to travel the 300 or so kilometres to visit him, it wasn't as often as I would have liked, and in retrospect, not as often as I now feel I should have made time for. His wife was having a hellish time looking after him and not getting a lot of support. Eventually, he and his wife moved down the coast to stay with his parents.
The last time I visited him, which was at his parents, he looked a mess. He had undergone surgery as a last attempt to remove the cancer and some brain damage had resulted. He was very wobbly on his feet, was very vague, and had lost the function of half of his face, but he was very happy to see me. I was happy to be there, but didn't know what to say or how to relate. I ended up making simple conversation, not knowing the best thing to say.
I had brought him a tape of one of his favourite bands recorded from the radio while they were playing live in the radio studio, which he was happy to listen to, and a recording of some of the songs we had played together in the band. I don't remember much more of that final meeting, except that I knew it was the last time I was going to see him, and I think he knew it too. He had been fighting the cancer for some time, and didn't have much strength left.
About a month later, I did a healing ritual for him with about a dozen others, as he was back in hospital and not doing well. A week later he was dead.
Hearing of his death was like a punch in stomach, even though I had been expecting it. For a few weeks I was in shock, then later at his requiem, tears came, and with them came healing. His wife had a lot of anger toward those in the pagan community she had thought of as family (not having any support from her relatives), as she felt that they hadn't offered her any support when she had needed it most. It took her some years to even partially heal from those wounds.
This lack of support in the pagan community that I was involved in was something that I experienced as well, and found very strange and upsetting. I don't think that the others in the group had any experience with death and didn't really know how to cope with it or support others through it - and they showed general uncomfortableness around others expressing their grief.
It was my first experience with the death of someone close to me, and I believe I have a slightly different view on life and dying because of it. I hope that from my experiences that I will be able to offer my support to others who experience the death of someone close to them. It is an experience that is very painful, and not something to go through alone.
Thanks for listening to my story. I hope to hear of other's experiences - we all have something worthwhile to say, and by sharing our experiences with others, we may be able to not only teach something, but learn something about our selves in the process.
thanks and blessings
Wyrmwood