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"Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth."
- Benjamin Disraeli | |
| What Friends GIVE |
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Another Door Opens
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Previous
Newsletters
Issues of previous WhatFriendsDo.com newsletters are available online. |
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Do you like WhatFriendsDo.com? Then be sure to tell your friends about it! Use this button to send to your friends now so they can learn more about WhatFriendsDo.com today!
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Greetings!
It is always amazing how much we can see ourselves and our friendships when reading novels, magazines and stories on the Internet. The WhatFriendsDo.com newsletter arrives in your Inbox once a month to give you a glimpse of what friends do to help their friends and enrich their friendships. |
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Experiencing Emotions
Your friend will go through many emotions through the course of his or her life-changing event. It is suggested on What Friends Need to Know that you try to leave your friend in the emotion he or she is experiencing. That emotion has a purpose; it is like a season of life. It, too, will change. We humans go through extreme highs and extreme lows whether we are celebrating the birth of a precious baby, mourning the death of a dear parent, or recovering from major surgery.
Interestingly, we "friends" also go through a wide range of emotions as our loved one goes through a life-changing event. Those emotions serve a purpose in our lives, too. Regardless of your own emotions, try to "go with the flow" and be supportive of your friend regardless of whatever mood you happen to find him or her in when you stop by to visit. Your job is to be a good listener if your friend wants to share a story about the situation. But let your friend take the lead; you can ask a question, and if your friend obviously does not want to discuss details with you, find other conversation topics. And, just as well to refrain from saying "It will be OK." Of course it will, but right now, it's NOT.
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Special Days
The WhatFriendsDo.com concept of "celebrating" special days all year long allows friends to stay in touch from near and far, during happy times and difficult times.
June 6 - National Gardening Exercise Day
June 12 - Red Rose Day
June 17 - Eat Your Vegetables Day
June 19 - Write a Letter Day
June 25 - Log Cabin Day |
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Friendship During Time of Crisis As I think back, perhaps my earliest realization of the collective impact that friendship can have in the life of someone who is going through a life-changing event came when I read Elizabeth Berg's Talk Before Sleep. It is a powerful novel about a group of women who rally around a mutual friend battling breast cancer. I read it at the same time as I and several friends watched a dear and long-time friend fight her own breast cancer war.
Poignant and humor-filled, the novel conveyed beautifully the range of emotions these fictional women experienced as they kept vigil with their friend. Many of the emotions were as you would expect - concern, anxiety, determination, sympathy, love. But, many of their emotions were a surprise to me - jealousy, anger, disapproval, impatience. Sometimes these emotions were directed at their friend and her family and sometimes at each other. Almost always they went unexpressed.
As I read this book, I was struck by how closely it hit home. And, as my friends and I passed the novel around, we came to agree that not only did all those emotions exist in our own situation, but that they were acceptable, even important, to experience.
What we came to realize is that by acknowledging the full range of human emotions we were feeling, we became less afraid to move outside our comfort zone with our friend and with each other. We became better listeners, more creative helpers and more thoughtful supporters for her and for each other.
My regret is that we didn't have an invaluable forum like this website to help guide us as those emotions initially surfaced or to suggest ways that we could channel our emotional energy to better help our friend and each other through such a difficult time.
Years later, as I use www.whatfriendsdo.com as a personal resource to help my friends-in-need, I am reminded of this book and its real-world lesson that friendship during a time of crisis isn't always neat, tidy and predictable. What it is, however, is one of the world's most truly extraordinary gifts, when shared from the heart to make someone's struggle a little less solitary.
Katherine Marlowe | |
We might not be able to change the outcome of your situation, but we hope we can help change the journey!
WhatFriendsDo.com Staff  |
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