Answer: Check out these ideas by Bruce Feiler and Mia Freedman.

Bruce Feiler had bone cancer and wrote about his experience in the book The Council of Dads.

Mia Freedman, a journalist with the West Australian, wrote up Bruce’s Do’s and Don’ts of what to say to someone with a serious illness.

Don’t say:

1. What can I do to help? (Don’t ask, be proactive.)
2. My thoughts and prayers are with you. (A cliche.)
3. Did you try that mango colonic I recommended? (Leave treatment advice to the doctors.)
4. Everything will be OK. (You don’t know that.)
5. How are we today? (Sick people aren’t mentally diminished infants.)
6. You look great. (Don’t focus on the externals.)

Do Say:

1. No need to write back. (Keeping up with correspondence can be overwhelming.)
2. I should be going now. (Short visits are best.)
3. Would you like some gossip? (Distraction is helpful.)
4. I love you or I’m sorry you have to go through this. (Honest expression of emotions are a powerful gift.)

Mia Freedman’s friends added some more helpful ideas:

“I so appreciated the people who just quietly dropped food on my doorstep unprompted. With treatment, it can be hard enough to eat, let alone shop and cook. And I had a family to feed! Meals were a godsend.”

“People often feel guilty talking about themselves but I love it! I’m so tired of discussing my health. Whether you talk to me about the jeans you found on sale or some outrageous bit of Hollywood gossip, it’s a relief to shift the focus off me, even briefly.”

“When I see a friend who’s going through a tough time, I always open with, “We can talk about it for as long as you want, or we can not talk about it at all. Your call!” And it makes people instantly relax to know they’re not expected to go through the whole spiel. Because when you’re going through cancer or a divorce or miscarriage, it can be exhausting to feel like you have to tell the same story again and again.”

Cynthia Banham, a journalist with the Sydney Morning Herald who lost her legs in a plane crash, wrote about how annoying trite one-liner platitudes are to listen to from concerned others. Her two most hated were:

• “Whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.” (Friedrich Nietzche’s famous quote)
• “There but for the grace of God go I”. (Translation: Had not God smiled on me, I might be where you are now.” not exactly a source of comfort for those presumably God chose not to smile upon!)

Banham said she did like one thing someone told her:

“While I was still in the burns unit, struggling to come to terms with what had been dealt me, a very wise man, now a friend, counseled me to ‘focus on the things you can do, not the things you can’t’.

I’ve returned to that piece of advice many times since, and its power to lift me has never diminished.”

from The language of suffering