Friend's parents

[Sophrosyne]

For a mentor I still don't know if this is the right forum so feel free to move it

So for ages now I've known that my friend's, let's call her G, dad has cancer and he only has either a few months or a year depending on how good the surgery is that is happening in December. Now that is sad enough, but she found out today that her mum also has cancer. Not sure what kind of cancer he has, but she has lung cancer. So basically I know she's losing at least one parent but we don't know about the other. What I'm basically trying to ask is what am I meant to do in this situation? She isn't close with her mum anyway, but she's still her mum and soon is going to be the only parent left. I don't know how I'm meant to act when she is needing help in coping with it because losing her dad is really taking a toll on her.

This is really badly worded but oh well. Advice?

[TheAtomicBlade]

Hi,
Really, there isn't much you can do. What I'd say is just be there for your friend. She's going through a really hard time, and right now, any support will help. Even a simple thing like checking in on her, or perhaps getting her a bar of her favorite chocolate will definitely help.
Also, make it clear that you're there for her. Right now, she'll probably have breakdowns etc at random times and having a friend she can call at anytime will really be helpful.
PM me if you'd like to talk about this more.

[Always *]

It's really bizarre, but I am actually going through the same thing with one of my friends - I am assuming we don't secretly know the same person because you're profile says you're only 16 and I'd be pretty weirded out if my 26 ear old friend was hanging out with you. I don't think there is really anything that you can do that's the "right" thing. Just be there for her.

I think you can do little things like just check in, ask her how she is doing, ask her how her parents treatments are going, and don't pry for more information than she's willing to provide, like I might want to be like "hey, so is your ad going to die?" but questions like that aren't really helpful. At all. IF she brings up test results, you can always ask her if they understand what the prognosis is like. Also, you can just ask her what she needs from you or offer to have her come stay at your home for a weekend or see if her family needs some meals cooked for them since I imagine cooking is much lower on their list of priorities right now. You can always offer such things and see if its needed.

[Celyn]

Don't worry about not knowing whether it's in the right forum or not. I've done that many times myself Do let me know if you want your thread moved though.

That's a really difficult situation, and I can only echo what's already been said. When I was losing my dad, I would have good days and bad days. Some days I just wanted someone to listen to me, even though I knew that some friends had not lost a parent, I knew they couldn't give me advice or anything, but I just wanted to talk. Other times, I was okay, but wanted to hang out with friends to take my mind off things.

I think the best thing you can do is just to continue being friends with her, supporting her and being there for her. You can ask her if there's certain things that you should avoid asking or doing, or if there are certain things that she would like you to do, in terms of support. I'm sure she'll appreciate you just being a friend in such a difficult time of her life.

[Sophrosyne]

Thanks everyone for the advice, it definitely helped ease my mind about it.

Originally Posted by Celyn

Don't worry about not knowing whether it's in the right forum or not. I've done that many times myself Do let me know if you want your thread moved though.

I think it can stay in this one, I don't think it would really fit anywhere else.

I work with teens who have lost loved ones and sometimes a teen comes in who has lost a parent. They are usually pretty angry and don't want to be there but something I see is that they just want someone they can talk to and be a kid again. Your friend is going to have good days and bad days. When they are having a bad day they probably won't want to do a lot but they might want to talk and you can be there to listen. You can't take their pain away but you can give them support and it's possible you might be able to come up with ideas to distract them.

Something else you can do is look into grief groups for teens and see if there are any. I think grief groups are amazing but most places don't offer that for teens and children. I think there are only a handful of them in the USA but I think it helps the teens to have someone who can relate to their struggle. I realize you aren't in the US so there might or might not be more groups where you are but a quick google search can help. If you find something I would suggest giving the information to your friend a while after the loss. I know in the support group that I do they ask the parents of the kids to wait at least three months after the loss to get involved.

Anyway, I hope this helped.