The five month anniversary of the death of one of my best friends, who I call by the pseudonym “Penny” on here, will be in one week. Her loss is still hitting me as hard as if it had only been weeks, not months, since she passed. I’ve been trying to think of ways to find closure—her mother sent me some teas Penny liked and I’ve been preparing one the way Penny used to and drinking it in her memory when I miss her, I’ve tried to write through my feelings, I’ve tried talking about it with our mutual friends, and etc—but nothing has been successful. This has been the first time I wasn’t able to attend the wake of a deceased loved one—Penny’s mother wasn’t able to reach most of Penny’s friends until about a week after the fact, and Penny had already been cremated by then—so I suspect that could be why I haven’t been able to find closure. One thing that came to mind was that Penny was Wiccan. I wondered if maybe there’s something that Wiccans do to mourn their dead that I could do for her. If there are any Wiccans on here who could give me advice and information, I would be very grateful for the assistance. I don’t know if it will help me gain closure, but I would like to at least try it. Even if it doesn’t help me to reach acceptance, I would still like to do something to remember her on that day.
There's a bunch of pagan and witchy folks around, but no actual Wiccans so far as I know. (We usually hang around the witchcraft thread in the general discussion, fyi.) My personal advice would be, there's almost never harm in lighting a candle and sitting vigil for it. Don't let it burn unattended, obviously, but from a spiritual perspective... Yeah, candles are safe for most any religious leaning. (If you can't actually do a Burning Candle for fire hazard reasons, LED electric candles make pretty good substitutes, though I wouldn't advise trying to sit vigil until one of those runs out. They have battery life for forever.)
