How to help a grieving friend?

jessiehl
Fri, 04 Aug 2006 16:27:35 +0000

My friend’s mother has just died of cancer. This girl is a rising junior in college, and has been through so much crap in the past year, related to both her mother’s illness and all sorts of other stuff. It is extremely sad. She is a good friend, and also my Little in our school’s co-ed service fraternity (meaning, I was chosen to serve as her mentor within the fraternity when she pledged). I am currently working a summer job a few thousand miles away from where she is, and will not see her in person for a few weeks. I would really like to be comforting for her, in some way beyond the generic “I’m so sorry for your loss” comment on her blog, but I feel constrained by being so far away. I have told her before that she is always welcome to talk to me online if she needs someone to talk to, but she hasn’t been online much lately and because of the time difference, our sleep schedules don’t always mesh well.

Any suggestions? Should I just continue to tell her that I’m there if she wants to talk, and maybe bring her something nice when I go back to campus? I don’t know what to say that doesn’t sound hollow…