My Family, Cancer & the Afterlife

Writing this article there is so much I would like to share with you, so many personal memories, so I decided to share with you those moments of a more supernatural interest.

As we all are so aware, Cancer is an illness that has touched most people in the Western world at some point in their lives. I would like to share mine own experiences with this illness in the hope it may inspire others in someway.

My first introduction to cancer was in my late teens when my own Dad’s sister died of breast cancer, back then I knew nothing of the illness and to me she had been an aunt who I only knew of when I was a child and hadn’t seen for many years. I didn’t feel connected to her situation hence didn’t take on board the severity of such an illness at the time.

It wasn’t until I was in my late twenties that my own Dad then developed lung cancer that I learnt to understand more of this illness. He was 45 when I was conceived so he was in his early 70’s when he developed cancer, he’d smoked heavily since being a teenager but up until the point of him developing cancer he was a very fit (although he smoked) and a very active man. Dad battled with cancer for two years and there were times when it seemed as if he wasn’t even ill, but finally the illness got the better of him and he passed away peacefully with his three sons by his side, for me it was a heart warming experience to watch a person let go of all that pain and to be free to transcend into a whole new world of possibilities.

After Dad had passed I remember both my brothers visiting him in has casket and coming away wishing that they hadn’t gone as by doing so seemed to spoil their memories with our Dad, obviously this is something very personal to the invidual, I said I wouldn’t go, my reason being that the body that once was Dad was now only a mere shell and Dad had moved on from this world to continue his onward journey. I never saw his journey from this world to the next and for many years he never came forward for me or any other medium to communicate but within a few days of his passing Mum was in the kitchen and began to smell his cigarette smoke and at that moment felt his hands hold on to her around her waist, she knew it was him and with that he was no more!
 
A year before Dad passed away a very close friend of ours developed breast cancer and this was the first time she too had any dealings with the disease, she was there watching my Dad slowly dying and it seemed to gave her the determination that she was going to win her own battle. Until that point she herself was somewhat in denial of it all. Sadly a few years after Dad going to spirit she too lost her own battle. Due to medical complications for ten years of her life she had tried for a baby and always miscarried but by some miracle, found that she was pregnant, her daughter was ten when she lost her Mum to cancer, it would have been more bearable if there had been a father to support her, but there wasn’t, she was all alone! I still hear Nicky’s words in my ear, especially when it comes to people, there were no flies on her and if someone in life does me an injustice I always feel her words of guidance emanating from deep within the spirit world.

Incidentally her daughter, now in her twenties has a great career as a teacher and takes her profession around the world!

The next time I was to encounter cancer was with my cousin on my Mum’s side of the family, she had lost her own son to Leukaemia some twenty years before.

 Pat was very open to the other side and Keith her son who had died at the age of 21, leaving behind his one year old son and would often communicate through me revealing information that I would not have had access to. Pat had been a heavy smoker herself when in her sixties she discovered she had breast cancer, at the time of her illness she lived a couple of doors away from my Mum. Mum was never that fond of Pat, she thought her to be very selfish, Pat’s own mother had died (Mum’s sister) and in Pat’s last year, Mum found herself being the Mum to Pat that she never thought she would be. I was in America at the time working so I never saw my cousin Pat in her final weeks or even got to go to the funeral but she’s come for a visit from time to time from the spirit realm and has made her presence known through other mediums. It’s just sad that only her daughter remains and her own Mum, or her brother got to see her own family grow up. But she knows they are not far from her which brings her great comfort. Pat and I would have many conversations about the other world and I know this gave her great comfort to understand her journey she would undertake.

Two and a half years ago my own Mum was then diagnosed with throat cancer, I believe this to be one of the hardest places to treat if left undetected, Mum was in her late eighties at the time and still quite healthy and active but again like dad she too had smoked since she had been a teenager. We had often spoken of her moving to the south coast of England, long before she developed cancer but she never moved there, yet it was her wish that she didn’t want to die where she lived and she wanted to die on the south coast which is where myself and my two older brothers live.

Mum was diagnosed in the January time and died in the July of the same year. Her birthday had been March 9th and for her birthday I bought her an Orchid that year but the very next day she was taken into hospital so I took the orchid home with me, usually they only flower depending on their circumstances for six weeks or so but this one stayed in full flower and kept producing more buds until her birthday of the following year when I then cut the stork down and left it.

Shortly before her birthday I remember staying with her one evening, she was in bed asleep and I was watching TV in the lounge when I realised that something was different about the room I was in. I began to realise that there was a faint light filtering into the room, it was the night time so the curtains were drawn, the TV was on but the light manifested on the other side of the room, as I watched it I began to notice that within this faint light appeared to be figures and as I watched and focused I began to realise that it was my Mums sisters and her own Mum, then as quickly as it came it was gone and at that point I realised I had become aware of the light, the light that they say comes for us all at the point of death, but this was faint and Mum was still here and that’s when I began to have the thoughts that what if the light just doesn’t come at the point of death but it presents itself many times before death. I only ever saw it the once and never again.
 
During the last month before her passing my eldest brother began to feel unwell, tiered most of the time but put it down to all the stresses relating to Mum and her illness never believing that for one moment he too had lung cancer. It turns out that his cancer was in the same lung as our Dads had been and in the same place, just under a rib which made it difficult to get at.

After Mum passed away, my brother was about a year into his treatment when we then discovered that his own wife had then developed the same cancer that Mum had passed with. My brother and his wife have three older children, three boys! There were times when everyone thought we were going to lose her but she fought bravely and overcame her personal battle with cancer to put her in the all clear. Unlike Mum and Dad neither of them smoked and led very healthy and active lifestyles, neither was there any trace of any cancer in my sister in laws family so why her?

Shortly after the anniversary of Mums birthday in March of this year, my brother was taken into hospital. I hadn’t noticed at the time but around Mums birthday the Orchid I had bought her had started to bud up once again and once I saw it I realised what it meant, it was the sign to indicate my own brother would return to the spirit world. And on June 30th 2011 my brother lost the fight and passed away, leaving his three boys and his wife behind.

During his funeral whilst the service took place in the church I looked up over his coffin and saw Mum, Dad and my brother all together and knew he was safe!
I forgot to mention, Mum did get her dying wish! Once we knew she was terminal it was if by magic all the doors suddenly opened and I found a nursing home in Southsea where I lived who would take Mum and would help us to look after her, she was there for two weeks before returning to spirit. Sadly none of us were with her when she passed away, but secretly I think she planned it that way.

My own Mediumship has given me great comfort and understanding knowing that my family and friends are alive and are free of pain and discomfort and continuing to be with other family members and friends along the way. We often forget about their own personal journey once they have left us behind, but whether you believe in an afterlife or not, life always finds a way to give us hope! You just have to open your mind.

“In memory of all those who have passed away from cancer, that their spirit continues to live on in their families and their memories live on within all who knew them”!

© Paul Cissell 2011
www.paulcissell.com