Twenty years ago, one of my best friends found out that her marriage had imploded. We went for an agitated walk around the park while our children chased each other in ignorance. At some point I started to get steamed about her husband and it showed.

 

"Lori, it does not help me for you to hate him." 

 

My mouth snapped shut. Her comment was branded on my memory, not from her searing anger, but from vulnerability. She had little energy, was facing a messy divorce, and still had to co-parent with him. Revenge would suck the life out of her limited reserves. 

 

Many times since when someone I love has been eyeball to eyeball with a diagnosis, or a job change, or a rebellious teenager, those words have helped me hold my tongue. Any space that my negative feelings take up robs my friend of oxygen. 

 

I once asked a woman with cancer if she had to reassure people that she would make it. 

 

"Yes, and it is exhausting. They think they are comforting me by saying how sad they are, and asking for details." 

 

It is a narrow line to walk, Plus it moves. One day someone who is struggling may want to rant, and later they may choose to talk about anything but the problem. It would be easier I suppose if there were absolute rules for supporting people. 

 

But we humans are messier than that. What I do find is that listening rather than blasting with our own reaction matters. A kind text might land more softly than a phone call. Flowers may express what words cannot. 

 

I recall a story in the book Random Acts of Kindness in which a woman wanted to give a boost to her niece when she left for college. But she couldn't think of what to say. She wrote postcards, because they were easier to fill up, and wrote absurd things about cats who paraded down the center of the street, and a neighbor who rescued monkeys. She had no idea what she would write until she wrote it, and the saga continued over dozens of postcards through the fall semester. They were unsigned. Years later her niece figured it out, and told her how much she looked forward to the crazy episodes, and that they got her over her loneliness. 

 

Maybe we have no idea how to offer strength to someone whose life is wobbly. But maybe I will buy a stack of goofy postcards.