A few weeks ago, I posted about what to do or say when your best friend learns she has cancer. It seemed that many people read and took those words to heart, and I want to make sure that it is clear: I am speaking from hindsight. Much of this I got wrong. I wasn't really very good at it, but I tried to pay attention and learn from my mistakes.
When you live five hours away, it's hard to give advice for the everyday. Impossible really. Susan was so lucky to have a strong church community, school community, blogger community, and some really awesome friends who organized her meals, her childcare, and her transportation when needed. She also has the most amazing husband, parents, and in-laws who stepped in. The only things I know about supporting your friend in person when they are in cancer treatment are these:
- Don't show up sick. Don't show up if you've been sick in the past week. Don't show up if anyone in your house is sick. Germs are the absolute worst thing to bring them.
- When you want to help - have an idea. Don't call and say, "Let me know what I can do to help." They shouldn't have to think about it. If you have a skill or an opportunity, then step in and do something. Don't put it off on your friend to think up something for you to feel useful.
- And please - don't say that her problems make you rethink your own life or make you feel badly for having less life threatening problems. It's annoying to be the barometer of how much someone else's life sucks.
If you live five hours away, it's easy to think that you are useless, and that's not true. In fact, it's a little easier for you to be that person with whom your friend can still be "normal." When you aren't seeing the treatment first hand, it's a little easier for you to be the one who can still call and ask for help with your uncontrollable three year old.
You can be the one who still needs her. And trust me, she needs to still be needed.
It felt selfish to me - to call and cry to her about my problems. What I learned though, was that in crying to her about my problems, she knew that I still saw her as my friend, Susan. Not my friend with cancer.
Again, it's about living. The more you focus on the cancer with your friend, the more the cancer takes over. She needs people to still be who they were with her so that she can still be herself. If the cancer is terminal, then you both know it's going to take her life in the end - don't let it take her being while she is still here and breathing.
There will be times when you want to know what is going on with her treatment, and that is alright. Tell her that you would like an update when she is ready to give you one. Remember that she needs time to process information from the doctors and to go over it with her family. She will tell you want she needs you to know in her own time.
Living apart doesn't mean that you never see each other though. Get in the car, on a plane, or on a train and get there. This is the one area where I don't recommend trying to maintain the norm. Get there. Every chance you have to see her that you don't take will be time that you regret. Trust me on that one. Get there every single chance that you can. Take your children with you so that they can know her. Spend time with her children so that they can know you. Be friends with her partner - after all, you chose the same person as the bomb diggity. Of course, I already adored Susan's husband, so that last one was easy, but you get the point.
The phone line only goes so far. Make your choices wisely. Sacrifice. Get there. Because if you are life long best friends, then you may be one of the only people she feels like she can stay in her jammies around. She knows that if she needs to nap, you will amuse yourself or wash the dishes. She knows that she doesn't have to be strong around you - that you can and will handle her pain and her sorrow - because it's what you do for each other.
You won't be doing anything for her that she hasn't done for you all along - it's just in the context of cancer now.
