These things are tough butch. I have meditated long on life and have come to terms with my own death. This might sound slightly harsh to innocent ears, everybody dies. we all will one day, it's just a matter of when, and how. . . . hopefully, nothing too too fucked up happens along the way, and what ever you do, hopefully it brings you satisfaction. At my fairly young age 31, if I died tomorrow, as tragic as it would be for my family and friends, I would be ok with it because I have enjoyed my life. I've done a lot of things, experienced a lot of things. . . you get the idea.
It sounds to me like your friend is the same, lived a full life, made some strong connections with friends, lived and loved. . . as hard as it can be, remain positive and remember that its the times that you share with the people you love that will enrich your life for the rest of your life.
this holy shit gets to me butch. . . damnit. . . on a lighter note;
i've been reading up on this, although I haven't tried it yet (no space), I asked some friends in the bio dept at my university. It seems easy enough as long as you can follow some basic, but very careful lab protocols to avoid any contamination. you can easily buy small amounts of the materials (like MS,BAP,etc) needed on the net, and the other stuff like jars are easy to get too. I think it requires a hell of a lot more care than cloning, which is easy, cheap and reliable. It is cool as hell, but seriously, what the hell are you going to do with 10,000 clones. lol, I doubt even oaksterdam would go through that many of each strain per month. so i guess even if you were doing a couple hundred a month, i might be worth it, or if your like me and just do crazy shit for the fun of it. . . but if you only need less than 100 clones per month, cloning is so so easy, cheap and reliable, its hard to beat.
fyi, there is a decent amount of info on the net. . . like us pot growers, there is a fringe community of tissue culturers that are as avid about that as we are about this. spend thousands on equipment (like we do) obsess over perfection (like we do). they have great success, but it looks like you have to learn a lot, just like with this hobby, but maybe even more so. it's definitely doable if you want to put in the time to learn and get a good system down.
again, the Hole Shit.