Poor Spider-man. Even when he saves the day, the echoes of all his mistakes still haunt him. With great power comes great big piles of guilt. We can’t crawl up buildings and swing from rooftops, but we can walk our friend’s dog, drive them to the airport, or visit them in the hospital. These acts might seem small, but the guilt we can carry when they go wrong, or we don’t show up at all, can be just as debilitating. Clearly, you, Spidey, and I need to relax.

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Here’s how you can prevent that.

To avoid confusion, I’ll refer to your desperate friend as your “primary friend,” and the one you’re not currently talking to as your “secondary friend.”

Pass through the four gates of speech.

Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind? Is it the right time?

Give yourself a moment to consider each of these before telling your primary friend about someone else they might not know. The answer to that last gate is often “eh, probably not.” It’s better to listen when your friend talks about their problem, then try to get ahead of them and offer suggestions, however helpful they might feel.

Don’t tell the whole story.

It’s not necessarily “gossip” to share a secondary friend’s traumatic tale, but it can be unproductive. If you feel an intro will benefit both parties, let your secondary friend go into detail about their own experience. You may exaggerate or flub facts that will have to be corrected later on, or worse, share something that’s too private. Just identify why you think they’d make a good pair, and let them sort out the rest.

More importantly, the awful events your secondary friend experienced might be triggering to anyone you share them with. I know it’s exciting to recount a sequence of dramatic twists and turns, but you don’t always know how people will react. You may have come to terms with what happened, but those with fresh emotional wounds may not be so resilient.

Furthermore, your secondary friend also went through something terrible and they might not be open to connecting with anyone, even after your recommendation. Take care in offering this kind of meeting without first discovering if it’s even possible to make it happen.

Don’t minimize.

It also might feel to your primary friend like you’re drawing a comparison, or worse, suggesting what your secondary friend went through is more noteworthy or severe. If your primary friend trusts you enough to share the difficult journey they’ve been on, don’t be in a hurry to one-up them with an even sadder story.

Don’t assume they’re looking for help.

If you recognize that you have a secondary friend that could assist your primary friend, and your primary friend is uninterested in their help, let that be the end of it. This sounds obvious, but it can be difficult to let an opportunity pass when it feels like it could really change things. Take care in telling your secondary friend about your primary friend without their permission. Don’t go behind their back just because you think it’ll all work out for the best.

These tips pertain to things that aren’t necessarily “horrible,” such as learning a new skill, applying for a better job, or searching for a more appropriate place to live. Whatever the impulse, don’t expect a friend referral to be automatically welcomed, and don’t be offended if it’s ignored or rejected. Let your friend choose their own support group, and keep those additional friends (or resources) for yourself.

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Before I move to pitch and print the book version of this Substack, I want as much feedback as I can get from this community, and that hasn’t always been possible with a paywall. (Ironically, Substack now allows free and paid comments on paywalled posts as of this week.)

So in lieu of a traditional chapter, here’s a free post where anyone can ask me anything. Are there topics you wish I’d cover in the future? Have there been any points if brought up that you disagree with? I’m open to whatever questions or suggestions you might have (provided they’re respectful and productive).

Thank you for your engagement and support!

I’ll be back with a traditional post next Friday.

Managing a crisis can feel like an endless, bumpy road full of forks. Just when you’ve built up the courage to make a difficult decision, a tougher one appears on the horizon. This uncertainty can plague you twice as much when your friend is the one making the tough calls, and you just have to cheer them on without offering unwanted advice. Here are some ways you can help them navigate a rough ride without becoming a backseat driver.

Chill out.

Your opinions become your friend’s problems when you can’t manage the emotions that come with them. If you get too angry to hold something back, step away. Give your hurting friend as many passes as you can when you butt heads. If you’re still worked up, file the fight for later and focus on the moment. Agree to disagree, and move on.

Identify.

How do you choose to handle conflict? Kenneth Thomas and Ralph Kilmann developed their own model for labeling how we each manage a disagreement. We most often compete, accommodate, avoid, collaborate, or compromise. Once you understand this about yourself, you can better predict how you’ll act when a situation can’t be resolved so easily.

Don’t get distracted.

Debates can get out of hand when people don’t focus on the subject. If you get in a heated exchange of words with your friend, find common ground by getting back to whatever started the disagreement in the first place. Write down what you two agree on. Repeat your friend’s statements to show them you understand their point of view, even if you don’t see eye to eye.

Be prepared.

If your friend is ignoring your advice and charging headfirst toward disaster, prepare for the consequences, and help where you can, if things turn sour. And keep those “I told you so’s” to yourself. If your friend failed at something, they don’t need you to remind them of it. Conflict is an opportunity for growth. While it’s frustrating, and sometimes painful, to sit idly by while our friends fumble, each blunder is a chance for them to get wiser and stronger.

An important detail to remember, in every division between you and your friend, is there’s no guarantee that you, your friend, both of you, or either of you, are right. So there’s no point in endangering a friendship over something that hasn’t happened yet. If you get a sense the bond between you and your friend is beginning to strain, let a few cards fall where they may, and then help pick them back up later.

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We’re all responsible for our own actions, but when life deals us a difficult hand, it’s not trying to tell us something. It’s not a lesson, or a test. It’s just a horrible thing, and we need all the help we can get to work through it. And that sucks. When one life turns upside down, every life around it yearns for a reason why.

When my son had his first big procedure, my therapist told me something I’ll never forget. “You’re learning there are things that are out of your control.” That sentence rocked me. It’s so simple, but I still struggled to make peace with it. I needed a narrative to follow. Something that could tell me what had happened, so I could better understand what I had to do going forward.

But giving our trauma a “meaning” was never a comfort. I was seeking validation for this story I’d cooked up in my head, rather than focusing on the present, and the things that needed to be done, regardless of why they needed to be done.

So never, ever tell your friend “everything happens for a reason,” even if the truth of it rings clear as a bell in your ears. Everyone, and I mean every single person, I’ve consulted for this project rolled their eyes at that saying, often adding a knowing “Ugh.” They’ve all heard those words before, and they never worked as intended.

It makes sense why, if you empathize with their perspective. You’re trying to paint a silver-lining on top of their problem, but it’s so hard for them to see it that way. By offering this simple phrase, you’re teasing that a bit of clarity or respite is just around the corner, but it might not be. You may wish for your friend to look forward to the future, but they might use the phrase to place blame on themselves, and that could take years to untangle.

If you think God has a master plan for us all, you may confuse your friend with the almighty’s motivations. All of that can make sense to you, and you’re entitled to those positive beliefs, but they could befuddle someone whose life isn’t already built around them. It’s one of the many ways good intentions can have bad consequences during an emergency.

Just because it’s not helpful to search for definitive answers when life throws something sudden and senseless at us, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t seek ways to remain positive. If you find a method for processing your friend’s difficult situation, use it to present yourself in a calm, supportive manner as often as possible, rather than forcing your friend to agree. Do what it takes to control your own emotions, so you’re ready to handle whatever happens next.

An audio version of this post is available below for paid subscribers.

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We can handle our own bullies by avoiding them when possible, steering the confrontation toward a safe location, and being physically and verbally clear that we want the person to stop. But what can we do to make life easier when our friends are the ones getting pushed around?

Believe them.

Most of the time, we can’t be right by our friend’s side and throw ourselves in between them and anyone else that might cause them harm. We hear about this stuff afterward, and have to draw our own line through the events in a way that makes sense to us. So it’s imperative that, however implausible their story is, we give our friends the benefit of the doubt. Squabbling over the details is a good way to get them to stop sharing, and move on to another friend. It might isolate them and worsen their difficult experience.

It also helps to understand why they’re being picked on. If it’s a topic you’re unfamiliar with (race, religion, sexual preference, clothing style), get informed about why this could be a common battleground for opinionated hotheads.

Medical situations are often spaces where people get bullied. They bring up a concern, and the doctor or staff member dismisses it. It might not seem like bullying, because the medical person is supposed to be the expert. But all too often (and multiply this by 100 if your friend is in a minority group or a woman) the steamrolling in a medical setting can create an unsafe and sometimes life-threatening situation. This is a good place to be an on-hand advocate for your friend, and to back them up when they stand up for themselves.

Get others involved.

You shouldn’t have to figure this out by yourself. Identify any authority figures and get everyone connected. This is obviously a challenge if a boss or supervisor is the one doing the bullying, in which case you can reach out to those in a similar situation and share what you’ve experienced. Resources like StopBullying.gov are available, and if your friend is resistant to using services like these, take advantage of them yourself and learn all you can.

Collect evidence.

21st century bullying mostly happens online, and all of those traumatic interactions double as unhappy receipts if the time ever comes to address them in court, or with someone in a position of authority. If your friend brings you into their inner circle and wants you to watch their back, pay attention to what’s going on.

On the other hand, if your friend is uncommunicative, don’t pressure them for details. It’s not your job to solve problems they don’t ask you to solve. Give them space.

But also, stay close.

Unless they complain about your nosiness, check in when you think of them. Answer their calls, and reply to their texts. The less alone your friend feels, the more likely they’ll have the strength to ignore someone’s attitude, or the bravery to turn around and walk away. Sometimes just keeping an open line of communication is enough to manage a horrible thing.

Bullies feed on retaliation. They want their subjects to fight back so they can be amused by their victim’s sweat and tears. Or they thrive on the feeling of superiority they get from making sure the other person thinks they are “lesser than.” Deep down we know not to give them that satisfaction, but in the moment it can be hard to hold back our emotions. So one of the best things we can do for our bullied brothers and sisters is model a consistently calm attitude. Be the gentle voice of reason, and show them our well being is always more important than finishing someone else’s fight.

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The Friend’s Guide celebrates its first birthday this month. This is a happy moment for me (and hopefully our beautiful subs), but not all anniversaries can be celebrations. Lots of horrible things haunt our friends forever, especially when the calendar reminds them they happened. It’s risky to begin this conversation with them in case they’d prefer to honor the event in private, but there are still respectful acts we can demonstrate on our own.

Here are the most common types of awful anniversaries.

Death

If you were close to someone that you and your friend both lost, you can make a public demonstration of your sadness and devotion. Light a candle, plant a tree, recall a fond memory, engage in one of their hobbies, or support a cause they championed. The goal is not to direct this at those closest to the loss. Don’t be performative. Do it for yourself, and your friend will notice.

While this pertains to the loss of a loved one, you may also feel compelled to recognize a miscarriage or stillbirth. Be extremely careful in sharing information online when your friend might not have given you clearance to do so. Keep their grief private if it’s their wish.

Breakup

Whether it was a lifelong marriage or a one-week fling, it’s hard to gauge how a friend will feel about a former flame after a year has passed. Be prepared for a range of sporadic reactions. Don’t make assumptions and lament the loss, or berate the offending partner, if it might clash with how your friend feels inside. If you think they might want to make plans and put the past behind them, take small steps when reaching out. Don’t assume a wild night is going to fix everything. See what they want to do (if anything), and follow their lead.

Accident

This can range from a car crash to an assault to a natural disaster. I think, in this instance, it’s okay to reach out directly. Just don’t bog them down with pictures or poems. A simple “Thinking of you today” or a heart emoji will show them you’re someone they can count on if they need some extra TLC. If they don’t respond, or are puzzled by your poke, don’t make a big deal about it. Just say you’re recognizing the day, and hope they’re well.

Illness

Even if they’re no longer sick, the trauma from a diagnosis date can linger for a while. The first step in comforting someone dealing with this is identifying who knows about it. Don’t make a public display of support if only a small group is aware of their struggle. If you’re in that group, and you want to send them a message, you don’t need to reference the date in question. Just say you’re sending them strength. If they get why you picked that specific day to send it, they’ll know. If not, they’ll appreciate the call or text like they would any other day.

Layoff

I used to work in video games, an industry that has faced a staggering amount of layoffs in the past few years. Many of my old friends are still looking for work a year after being let go. This reality cuts even deeper when the firing occured on or around a holiday. This is a good time to reflect on how public they’ve been about their employment situation, and how engaged you’ve been in their efforts to get another job. Have you been boosting their posts on social media? Do you have colleagues that might be able to help?

Make goals for the next year. Doing a job search on their behalf might stress them out a bit, so instead consider offering to watch their kids while they get interviewed for a new position, or ask around for opportunities they might have missed. Above all, make them feel valued. Compliment them on the skills they’ve developed that make them hireable, and mean it.

Any anniversary that’s not our own can be easy to forget. Regardless of how you choose to behave on these difficult days, it’s worthwhile to track them so you can avoid an unintentional blunder. For example, don’t ask someone to babysit your toddler a year after they miscarried, or invite someone on a road trip a year after they lost their husband in a car crash. Drop

these dates in your calendar or planner and prepare for your friend to act any number of unpredictable ways. Help them make it to another sunrise as emotionally unscathed as possible.

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Lots of people want to keep their friends happy, but is it our responsibility to keep them healthy as well?

Surviving a horrible thing often involves developing coping mechanisms that can lead to new habits… not all of them are good for our bodies. It’s difficult to watch our friends gain weight, or stop exercising, or drink more than they should. The harsh reality is there’s nothing we can tell them that will reverse this behavior. Any prodding you do, even with the best of intentions, will likely only create distance between you and the person you’re trying to help.

There’s nothing we can say, but a lot we can do. Such as…

Set a positive example.

The phrase “do as I say, not as I do,” won’t get you very far when you’re giving your friend advice. You have to walk the walk. If you’re taking your friend out for a meal, don’t insist on ordering cocktails or dessert, unless they’re dying to celebrate. If you’re visiting their house, don’t bring a six-pack of beer if one wasn’t requested. Dropping off a care package at the hospital? Fill it with healthy snacks like nuts or dried fruit. Let them be the one that decides it’s time to party.

Make healthy food.

Preparing meals for others isn’t just about saving them time. You can offer a subtle suggestion of how you think friends should maintain their eating habits, or make the tough call for them when you deliver a veggie lasagna instead of a meaty one, high in fat. I once had a co-worker ask me if I could stop ordering pizzas for company meetings because they were on a strict diet. I thought how tough it must have been for them to ask that, and how easy it was for me to order food based on my own lifestyle, without considering the health of others.

Get moving.

An invitation to a predetermined exercise location (like a gym or a yoga class) could be the stress reliever your friend needs. In other cases it might be a lot to expect an exhausted friend to accept. Pick a place to lunch with them that’s near their home or office, and see if they’ll walk there. Try to get them out of their house (a possibly nerve-wracking environment) for a quick stroll around the neighborhood. If they say no to all of this, repeatedly, don’t annoy them further. Instead, set a good example, and let your friend warm up to the idea in time.

Pay the dues.

Your friend might really want to lose weight or build muscle or get flexible, but they can’t afford the cost. Medical and legal bills can stack up quickly. So if you have a trainer, therapist, or aerobics instructor you think will help your friend get physically fit and mentally strong, don’t just recommend them, pay for at least the first session. We can’t perceive the benefits of these things until we do them, and the prohibitive cost is an easy way to avoid trying.

Attend a meeting together.

There are a variety of support groups available for people going through, and recovering from, tough times. But the fear and stigma around attending one of these meetings (AA, cancer support, widowed spouses etc) can halt many people at the door. Offer to go with your friend if it’s something they’ve said they wish they could do. We all need help to get help sometimes. And hopefully once they find a group of people who’ve really gone through what they’re going through, their care of themselves will be bolstered as well.

Whatever step you take, don’t pretend to be perfect. Your friend is unlikely to follow your lead if they think you’re the best at everything. If you say “working out is easy” or “I don’t even crave meat anymore,” it won’t inspire them. It just makes you sound like a superhero, capable of feats they don’t have the will to achieve with you. But if you’re honest about how challenging it is to keep a consistent gym schedule, or how susceptible you are to late-night ice cream cravings, it feels more welcoming when you check if they’ll sign up for a weekend hike. It’ll feel like they’re joining you, instead of following you.

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Why is it so hard to talk to friends who are suffering? How do we safely cross the gulf between the way we want to act and the mistakes people so often make during an emergency? There Is No Good Card For This uses experience, humor, and tenderness to take these uncomfortable situations head on, and teach us how to be kinder to ourselves when things get scary. It’s a short, funny, informative read. It feels like old friends comforting you through tough times.

The book’s magic comes from the practical synergy between its co-contributors, Kelsey Crowe, PhD and illustrator Emily McDowell. Crowe’s organization, Help Each Other Out, and specifically their Empathy Bootcamps, enabled her to gather stories from over nine hundred people overcoming all sorts of ongoing issues. McDowell’s life experience inspired her to create Em & Friends, a retailer specializing in heartfelt and unconventional sympathy cards, in a style that heavily influenced the book’s design.

The combination of Crowe’s careful research and McDowell’s quirky personality brings a much-needed lightness to the book’s tone as it tackles a series of difficult topics. The playful illustrations range from giddy to gut-wrenching, and each anonymous quote is a sobering glimpse into the topsy-turvy world of someone surviving a horrible thing. The co-authors also share their own unique, personal tragedies that informed their writing journey, detailing about how they learned, first-hand, how people can do weird stuff when they try to help you.

What surprised me about the book is how long it spends helping you understand your own feelings and motivations before making the decision to help someone else. I kept waiting for it to list all the first steps in various emergencies, or easy ways to offend someone that’s unable to control their emotions (there are plenty of these in the last chapter). But it’s important to be loving and patient with ourselves, before we allow others to depend on us. Even after all the writing I’ve done on these issues in the past year, this book was able to succinctly label problems and responses in ways that helped me understand them much better.

I also appreciate the imaginary scenarios it creates (likely inspired by bootcamp participants) that let you slip into the shoes of someone given an opportunity to help other people. I either saw myself in these situations, or considered what these challenges are like for people living a drastically different life than me. Being a caregiver is not as simple as choosing to take action, or just putting one foot in front of the other. There can be so many variables at play that, even though you’re performing a good deed, it can feel like you’re doing it all wrong.

For all of Crowe’s astute and comforting observations, it’s really McDowell’s whimsical art that ties the whole thing together, and helps allay any fears you might have over studying these awkward inevitabilities. This subject matter is too often stuffed into boring textbooks, and the findings of psychologists are published in stale, scientific journals.

So having a batch of abrasively unsolicited advice presented in a comical font alongside an eccentric caricature helps the bitterly honest pill go down a bit smoother. Even if these panels reveal awful mistakes you’ve made in the past when conversing with your loved ones, McDowell draws them in ways that suggest we’re all just goofballs trying to do our best.

There Is No Good Card For This places a lot of emphasis on trusting yourself to make good decisions, and I’d never realized how important that is. You can read a thousand books on crisis resolution and still have your friend surprise you with how their trials and tribulations took an unexpected turn neither of you were prepared for.

Kelsey and Emily don’t expect us to memorize every word lovingly researched and illustrated on these pages. It’s their hope that through the process of understanding why we instinctively act in “good” and “bad” ways, we can more closely tie our intent to our actions, and show our friends the best versions of ourselves, during their worst moments.

An audio version of this post is available below for paid subscribers.

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Not so easy, huh? Even when we have the impulse, we can get tongue-tied trying to find a way to express it that countless poets haven’t already handled. But you don’t have to be a laureate to let someone know you adore them. You don’t need a reason, or a prompt. You just need to remember.

For example: You’re taking the time to read my post! I love you.

There’s a backwards assumption that the stronger a relationship is, the less it has to reaffirm itself. As someone whose marriage has been rocked back and forth by medical trauma for half a decade, I can assure you this is false. My wife and I drop “I love yous” all over the place. Soft, quiet ones when no one else is listening. Loud, silly ones when one of us is in another room. Short, simple ones when we’ve completed the tiniest favor. It’s part of our day-to-day survival.

Telling someone you love them, if it’s genuine, releases oxytocin, the “bonding” hormone. Think of it as something your friend can pack in their emotional first-aid-kit and use when circumstances start to bring them down. They’ll remember you love them. It’ll help.

Authentic affection comes in all shapes and sizes. Here are a few ways to let your friend know you’re thinking about them in the sweetest way.

Unprompted text

The shoe-in of “I love yous.” Few things stop someone in their tracks like a bold declaration of love out of nowhere. It makes us think “Was this a mistake? What did I do? Surely this person isn’t thinking of me right now.” But (surprise!) they are. And the text took literal seconds to type and send.

It’s likely you’ve had the impulse to do this before and even more likely that you didn’t follow through. Why? Because it’s scary! What if it’s the wrong time? What if it makes them uncomfortable? What if they’re annoyed? What if they don’t believe you?

We wouldn’t ask these questions if it were the other way around. Send the text. If they don’t respond, don’t send another. Trust me, they got it.

Cards

When you care enough to actually write a message with a pen and paper. Old school. The beauty of an encouragement card is it can be put on a shelf and that slight oxytocin kick can happen over and over. Keep it brief. Just a simple “thinking of you” goes a long way. We have a family friend who sends us cards almost monthly that say just that. We haven’t seen them since 2010 and yet they are keeping us constantly in their hearts and prayers and it means a lot.

The Heart Emoji

This may feel like a cop-out, a cartoonish method of conveying a much deeper meaning. But just because it’s cutesy and shorthand doesn’t mean it’s disingenuous. It still says “I love you.”

I once had a social media scuffle with a colleague and it stressed me out all weekend. I had trouble eating and sleeping just thinking about it. Once, when I dreaded turning on my phone, I received a simple heart emoji from another friend, and I understood its context. It didn’t need to be a paragraph about how they had me in their heart, and wanted to let me know. I got the message right away and, even a decade later, I still remember it.

If your friend is text-venting to you, a heart emoji on each section of their text can show that you are reading the message and listening. A heart comment on a social media post can speak volumes, especially when all the messages are the same version of “I’m so sorry.”

Don’t forget, the best kind of love is unreciprocated, meaning your friend doesn’t have to give it back right away. If they’re too exhausted to respond, or too frazzled to find the right words, let them just nod or send back a thumbs-up emoji. They can tell you how they feel later.

Really loving someone means not calculating how much love we “deserve to receive” in return. Horrible things require boatloads of love to overcome. Huge, bright beams of no-strings-attached emotional support, bursting from our chests like we’re Care Bears. So you don’t have to spend forever searching for the right words.

Just say “I love you.”

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If your friend is really “going through it right now” and you don’t have time to read two hundred pages about how to help them, here’s a quick list you can reference with the best advice I’ve found. These tips are not intended to solve your friend’s problems, but to help you both cope with them, and discover the path forward together.

Do something. If you’re stressed out figuring out the best possible way to throw your friend a lifeline, you run the risk of pacing in circles on the shore while they splash around in the water, gasping for air. Your friend would much rather you show up and say the wrong thing, or offer the wrong gesture, than do nothing at all.
For more on this, read Just Do It.

Listen. This word appears a lot in this book. It was the number one response given when I asked interview subjects “If you could give helpful friends one bit of advice, what would it be?” You’d think a devoted friend could easily stop talking and open their ears, but it takes a surprising level of patience. To truly “listen” you have to clear your mind of probing questions, and really absorb what your friend is trying to communicate. Take several seconds before you respond.
For more on this, read Silence.

Release your expectations. The more surprised you are at your friend’s behavior, the harder it will be to support them. Don’t judge. This may get weird, or gross. If your friend cries for twenty minutes, don’t think of ways to stop them. Don’t read up on their situation beforehand, filling your head with solutions to a problem you don’t fully understand yet. Breathe. Relax. Trust that your responses will be wiser than your assumptions.
For more on this, read Searching for Answers.

Let your friend lead. Stay in the passenger seat and keep your hands off the wheel. Unless they specifically ask you to make tough calls on their behalf, trust that your friend knows more about their ordeal than you do. Keep your suggestions to a minimum, and try not to second-guess their decisions. Unless a dramatic intervention is necessary, or your friend is likely to hurt themselves, or others, let them steer the ship through these rough waters.
For more on this, read All of a Sudden.

Above all, understand how empathy works. Define it for yourself. Look inside and put into words why you want to help your friend. The more connected you are with those goals and beliefs, the easier it will be to know the right thing to do.

If you want to learn more, keep reading. If not .. good luck! You got this!

An audio version of this post is available below for paid subscribers.

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But I learned it’s not really about money, recognition, or even good karma. It’s about turning a negative into a positive. If you can’t solve your own problem, maybe you can make other people’s problems easier to handle.

There’s a strange windfall that occurs when someone with a moderate amount of influence gets hit with a horrible thing. Even if they don’t start a charity, or make a huge donation, they often share their experience with the world, and call attention to an issue that might otherwise go unnoticed or misunderstood. This doesn’t mean we should wish bad times on good people, but they’re inevitable, and they can benefit each popular person’s community.

Whether you’re a celebrity or not, here are ways to make fertilizer out of a stinky mess.

Share wisdom.

You don’t have to be in the middle of a crisis to learn from it. Pay attention to your friends when they describe their hardships, and (without gossiping or naming names) share those difficult lessons with others that might benefit from them. If the party you’re sharing your wisdom with seems uninterested in receiving it, keep it to yourself for now. Especially if no-one asked for your advice. Unsolicited advice is invasive and judgmental behavior, even when given with the best intentions.

Do what works.

If you have the will and the means to make actual fertilizer (coffee grounds, eggshells, banana peels, and sturdy gardening gloves), you probably aren’t going to make it just once. You’ll collect more items to add to your compost heap, turn it over on a regular basis, and spread out the good dirt when it’s ready for the garden. Just as more life experience will create opportunities for emotional growth. If you previously launched a successful fundraiser, or mastered an easy-to-store veggie lasagna, it shouldn’t be too tough to put those talents to work again. You’re allowed to be boring and predictable when it comes to helping others. Making fertilizer requires consistency. Tend those caregiving skills.

Get active.

If you’ve exhausted all of your available resources helping a friend, and you’re eager to do more, consider looking at the bigger picture. Spread that goodwill as far and wide as possible. When my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer, there was only so much I could do to assist her recovery. Breast cancer is a cause that gets a lot of public attention, so there were a variety of fundraising events that we could participate in.

My wife and I signed up for the Avon 39 in her honor. We thought our distance running training would prepare us, but we struggled through the marathon one day, and half-marathon the second. It was incredible to be outstripped by people walking for their friends and family members, and women battling breast cancer. We raised money, awareness, and created tremendous positive energy for those in the fight.

The Avon 39 was gratifying, but you don’t have to light your leg muscles on fire like we did. You can volunteer at a local animal shelter, or join a protest that supports your friend’s values. Even if it doesn’t provide direct assistance with their own problem, knowing that you’ve helped others with similar issues, or brought attention to them on a global scale, your friend will likely appreciate your generosity, and even be moved by your acts of kindness.

No one stuck inside of an emergency wants to hear that it’s seeding the soil for good things to gradually emerge. That one day all this garbage will yield beautiful and positive crops. But as their friend, you’re in a unique position to realize that fact, and put that growth into motion. You’re not going to be harvesting happy memories overnight, but you’ll be working to make at least one person’s world a better place.

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But otherwise it can officially eff off all the way into the sun.

To celebrate this momentous occasion for our family, here’s a deep dive into this medical tool you’re probably unfamiliar with. And why it’s a helpful, but absolutely horrible thing.

There are lots of ways to grant immediate access to the human blood stream on a regular basis. Our son previously used PICC lines (peripherally inserted central catheters), tucked into the crook of his arm. They’re useful, but finicky. After one was accidentally pulled out during a routine lab visit, his medical team instead suggested a central line. It was more reliable, safer, drew faster, and recommended for patients that needed port access for an extended period of time.

We went for it, and it got the job done. But it also sucked, big time, for three reasons.

It couldn’t get wet.

Existing on the outside and inside of his body, simultaneously, meant he basically had an open wound at all times. So if anything got in there, it could get infected and he’d get sick real fast. So that meant no swimming, no water balloon fights, and no goofing around with the garden hose. This wasn’t new to us, as we’d been dealing with the PICC line for some time, but it was much more difficult to “water proof.” Anytime he spilled something on himself I freaked out. But all that was avoidable. For a six-year-old boy, unfortunately, bathtime was not.

Baths are supposed to be fun. Kids splash around, play with different toys, listen to music, and have precious alone time. With the PICC line we were able to use a handy rubber sleeve designed to cover arm casts (here’s a link, in case you need to get one of these puppies). Baths with the Broviac line now required the dreaded shower shield, a square plastic sheet with edges that stick to human skin. Because of the central line’s placement on the left side of my son’s chest, to encase the line, the shield had to wrap under his neck and right armpit.

No size fit him quite right. The sticky parts would pull the wrinkles on his neck. The plastic corners felt pokey against his sensitive skin. It peeled up in record time no matter what we did. We often worried our neighbors would think we were torturing our kiddo because putting this damn thing on made him scream at the top of his lungs, and we couldn’t blame him.

We let him beat up each sheet before applying it, crumpling it up and throwing it to the floor, because we hated the awful thing almost as much as he did. I had to drape my wife’s shower cap over his shoulder and press down hard when we washed his hair, because the seal around the edge wasn’t perfect, and we couldn’t take any chances. When we’d get him out of the tub (a two person job, every time) we’d rapidly dry all around the shield and then have to peel it off, which was another layer of annoyance because that obviously feels awful.

After we got the line out we put our remaining shower shields through a paper shredder as my son cackled with glee. The sticky bits got caught in its teeth, but it was worth it.

It needed a dressing change. Every. Week.

Just saying the words “dressing change” was enough to bring my son to tears. At first we drove an hour to the hospital each Sunday so a nurse could perform the complicated task. When a PICC bandage needed changing, only a nurse was qualified, with two other nurses as backup. The Broviac dressing change was, by comparison, much simpler. After a few lessons at the infusion clinic, my rockstar wife trained herself to do it so our kid could lie down on his own bed, in his own room, hopefully making the whole thing a bit less harrowing.

This was a heavy duty bandage, so we had to use a spray remover to soften up the adhesive. Even after drowning the thing it would still stubbornly stick to his skin. Once it was off, my wife had to clean the area around the port, wait for it to dry, apply a skin prep, wait for it to dry, and then delicately place the next bandage, making sure to coil the top half of the line inside. All while wearing blue rubber gloves that loved to get stuck to anything remotely sticky.

Because she’s incredible, my wife would pull our son out of his panic by asking what he wanted her to write on the last strip of tape. She would scribble his name, followed by “The Brave,” Mom Loves U, or a series of Xs and Os. He was proud of himself after finishing it each time, but it still clearly took a toll. Dressing changes were the hardest part of the whole experience.

Usually my wife would have to decompress afterwards. While she’s strong and cheerful on the outside, invading the personal space of your own kid in this way feels like crap. A weekly, family retraumatization. A necessary agonizing ritual to keep our son safe. Not fun. At all.

It dangled off his body all the time.

I’ve never experienced anything like this, personally, so I can only imagine how annoying that must have felt for nine months. My son did an astounding job at putting up with it. Every once in a while he would delicately say “...ouch” after sliding headfirst down a moderate slide, but otherwise he acted like it wasn’t there. It’s a miracle he tolerated it as well as he did.

The presence of the line meant I couldn’t really rough-house with him. We couldn’t wrestle or box or bump into each other like I see other sons and dads do. I hesitated picking him up and playfully plopping him on the couch, or lifting him out of the bathtub without pulling off the shower shield. This exposed part of my son was suddenly off limits. It was visible through his shirt. A weird bump, on top of his distended belly, which at times felt like a neon sign saying, “our son is different.” A constant, physical reminder that we were managing a crisis, and it needed to be respected.

If it’s not clear by now, I HATED THIS THING.

We asked to keep the central line after it was removed, so we could let our son destroy it in the most insidious way possible, but they had to dispose of it at the hospital. Oh well. At least we know they incinerated the damn thing.

For anyone dealing with tubes and ports and bags and so on, I hope beyond words that it gets easier. Take care, and thanks for reading!

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We rarely feel comfortable or confident enough to tell someone else that we’re jealous of them, so when your friend is recovering from a tragedy, you’ll have to develop a sixth sense about these things. Simply asking them about it won’t likely produce an honest answer, and if it does, it could lead to a very imbalanced conversation. If you suspect your friend is envious of your good things, compared to their horrible things, here are some tips to remember.

Don’t minimize your success for their benefit.

If it appears to your friend that your glass is half full, and theirs is half empty, no amount of pouring and re-pouring is going to fix that. You’re going to have to get to the heart of the issue, rather than attempt to redistribute the wealth, or fame, or friends, or family, or whatever it is that has seemingly tipped the scales in your favor. Unless you’re actively working against your friend’s recovery, keep doing what you’re doing.

Don’t downplay what they covet.

If your friend wants your car, don’t combat this by complaining how poorly it handles. If they see how much fun you’re having without kids, don’t gripe about how lonely you are. Speaking ill of the things your friend is secretly obsessed with doesn’t lessen their perceived value. It just makes you sound disingenuous. If they compliment you, say “Thanks,” and move on.

Remind your friend of their value.

If they assume you’d rather do anything other than spend time with them (or you fear they do), don’t let them forget how important they are to you. You can even frame it in the context of their recent issues. “Even with everything going on, I’m glad we can spend time together. Your friendship means a lot and I’m happy I can help.” If you’re there for them, rain or shine, make sure they know it.

Spend less time on the winner’s podium.

If you’re sharing your victories online through social media, you’re not responsible for who decides to read your feed. If your friend wants to doomscroll past your accomplishments, that’s their decision. Don’t feel guilty about promoting your wins to the general public, especially if that exposure is integral to your business. But if you’re going to be spending time with your friend, in-person, and you’re familiar with their troubles, don’t spend the whole conversation talking about how much of your life is total domination.

Know when to hit pause.

If you’re at the center of someone’s jealousy, you’re the least likely to solve it. If your friend was passed over for a promotion that you got, then you’re not the right person for them to commiserate with about how life can be unfair. Assess your relevance and attachment to their issues before you give into the urge to talk about how jealous your friend might be.

Perfection is unattainable, and you’ll exhaust yourself trying to maintain an even footing with friends. It’s not your fault you still have parents, or a house, or your job, or your sanity, and your friend doesn’t. Their setbacks are opportunities for you to leverage your gifts in life to ease your friend’s suffering and strengthen your bond together.

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Not all of them do! My son was born two months early, so our family played catch-up to all the developmental milestones we were supposed to be experiencing. Then he was hospitalized at age 2, which led to medically induced comas, debilitating accidents, and weeks of missed school. The only thing “fast” about my son’s life has been how little distance there seems to be between the incidents that put him further behind kids his age.

So when I hear that statement, I get angry. It makes me feel we’ve done something wrong. That we’re somehow living life incorrectly. Not all truisms are always true, or true for all people. Before you go handing them out (especially to a friend in need), re-evaluate the relevance of these platitudes for everyone’s sake.

If your friend needs help searching for answers, it can be tempting to give them unassailable advice. Something that can be easily applied to any situation and delivers instant “comfort.” But horrible things are rarely so simple. I often use the phrase “world turned upside-down” to describe your friend’s new reality. This means that so many things in your friend’s life have flipped, and that includes “facts” they previously took for granted.

Here are some truisms you might want to avoid offering to your troubled friend.

“It is what it is.”

Well, “it” sucks. So I’m not interested in what “it” is. I don’t have to accept what’s going on. I can rage against the dying of the light. “You get to define what it is.”

“Patience is a virtue.”

A lot of times people in trouble are able to be patient because they have no other choice. So being called a saint doesn’t really feel like the victory lap you want it to be. “Patience is tough.”

“Knowledge is power.”

You could have a complete understanding of a situation and still be incapable of changing anything. That doesn’t feel powerful. Not to mention the unusual things your friend will have to understand like divorce law, transplant medicine, or funeral preparations, will likely make them feel depleted. “Knowledge is necessary. Love is power.”

“You win some, you lose some.”

Obviously. It offers little solace to know that some horrible things could be wonderful things in a parallel universe. “You lose some, but that’s what friends are for.”

“What will be will be.”

First of all, this sounds inherently morbid. Second, a horrible thing is an evolving situation, so resting on any inevitable milestone isn’t healthy. You have to take it one day at a time. “Whatever will be, will be fine because we’ll all be there to support you.”

“Time is a great healer.”

People in a crisis never want to be reminded of the fact that it will take a long time. They might one day overcome it, and be better people when it ends, but that dream of the future doesn’t make the present any easier to deal with. And some things never heal. Don’t suggest to your friend that eventually they’ll be “better” because they’ve gotten over a terrible loss. “Friends are great healers.”

By now you should be recognizing that whiff of arrogance from these generalizations. They can’t help someone that can’t change their circumstances with clever words. Platitudes don’t make you wise, and they don’t solve any issue at hand. If you’ve already gone down this path in trying to comfort your friend, don’t fret! Everyone does it. It’s just not as effective as words from the heart and real action. You don’t have to tiptoe over all the helpful advice you’ve been given, just be ready if it doesn’t go the way you expect.

Some truisms are lovely. Jenny Holzer started a long list in 1978 including bangers like “Decency is a relative thing,” “It is heroic to try to stop time,” and “The mundane is to be cherished.”

The older we get, the more we love to impart wisdom based on the tough lessons we’ve learned. We’re always searching for ideas or phrases that explain how we view the world. These distilled lessons don’t apply to every situation however. Oftentimes, listening to a friend is far more generous than trying to sum up their experience in a sentence.

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Help is a rare and beautiful thing, whether we give to our friends, or ourselves.

Before we get into more specific lessons on some of life’s worst moments, let’s explore the very idea of saying “Uh oh, I need help.” We’ve talked about finding the will to give help, but willingly receiving it is a different matter.

Here’s why help is so hard to ask for, and so satisfying to give.

It’s embarrassing.

We all want to be strong and perfect, as if that’s something anyone can ever be. We ALL need help at some point, but admitting that can make us feel incompetent, or inferior. Some of us are just better at hiding or avoiding it. If our real friend needs help, we likely won’t judge them, and yet we think everyone will judge us. During my family’s last hospital tour, I opened up to old high school friends and was blown away by the enthusiastic support they returned. I hadn’t been consistent in updating them on my son’s progress before then, and they were eager to get involved in his story. Including them was a bit embarrassing at first, but worth it. Instead of keeping up a façade, I let them in, and now we’re all a little closer as a result.

It’s tough to trust people.

The harsh truth is we might not think our friends are capable of helping us. There are only a handful of people I’d trust with my son’s medical maintenance. Not because I don’t love them, or think they truly care, but because there are a thousand things that could go wrong. As the person asking for help, it’s my responsibility to be clear about our wants and needs, so that my friends don’t have to take risks or make assumptions. If it feels like your friend doesn’t trust you, that can sting, but it’s just a side effect of them wanting to protect themselves.

We don’t want to bother anyone.

I think there’s a massive shared belief in our society that everyone wants to be left alone, and when it comes to creepy strangers and persistent telemarketers, it’s true. We definitely value our independence as a species (though even strangers want to connect), but among close friends, we still innately want to know if the people we love are facing hard times, whether we’re capable of helping them or not.

The first step should be letting our immediate social circle know something is wrong. It’s up to them if they have the capacity to help. On the flipside, it never hurts to ask a friend if they’re okay. Just don’t be annoying about it if they have trouble answering.

Solitude mitigates the emotional damage.

If we bring our friends into our sad situation, they’re going to be sad too, right? Maybe. But they could also feel relief at finally understanding our recent behavior. Or they could find an unexpected rush of satisfaction coming to a friend’s aide, especially if their life experience gives them an edge in sharing wisdom or finding answers. Making a positive impact on our lives could easily benefit theirs in return. Someone in an emergency doesn’t need to predict or manage their friend’s motivations. Let them work that out on their own time.

Whatever radar we all use to detect how many people are willing to help us is defective. There are more people who have your back than you probably realize. So when a friend summons the courage to ask for help, remember how hard it was for you to do that the last time you had no other choice. Maybe that memory will put an extra skip in your step when you rush to your friend’s side, roll up your sleeves, and get to work making their troubles go away.

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