It’s commendable that you even want to understand and help. A natural response to cancer and the pain and heartbreak it causes is to run away. (But of course the patient can not run.)

Some things in life just suck, and sometimes all a friend can say is: I’m so sorry. And all you can do is listen to them and try to help them have fun. No matter how sick patients are, they can still enjoy movies and music and flowers and comedians and sunsets. You can reread books you loved as a child. There’s a lot left to do even in a deeply diminished life.

Don’t know if this will help, but here’s something I wrote a few years ago: http://donnatrussell.com/2008/08/23/its-cancer-now-what/

Cancer is unfair. Forget the myths you’ve heard. In truth, cancer goes after the nicest people. It helped me to remember that I am not alone in this unfair event. Many people succumbed to fates they did not deserve. Like Lily Burk. http://donnatrussell.com/2009/09/03/lily-burk-sweet-17-and-dead/

What would be the right thing to say to someone I am not that close to? I do accompany my loved ones to treatment visits and there are so many people in the waiting rooms/coffee table. Small talk seems too small, yet not making conversation makes me feel locked in. I feel unable to share the waiting. Because I do not have cancer yet(that I know of), I am an alien in that world. I do want to be present through this time in their life just as i would be present for any one else, dealing with any other kind of challenge. I can say “hope you get well soon” to any one any where else. Am so sorry you are going through this..? and after that what?

I was near a 33 year old girl who just heard that the cancer progressed- she was crying in the waiting area. I went through every sentence in my limited ability to find the right thing to say or do .Her mother was next to her, who asked me what should she say? I can only imagin what the mother must be going through too. Many of the sentences i thought of at that time, are the very ones that i read above to be most inapproporiate now! I still have not found the correct thing to say to either of them.