I learned, very gradually, that a friend’s job in these circumstances is not to cheer the person up. It’s to acknowledge the reality of the situation; it’s to hear, respect, and love them; it’s to show them you haven’t given up on them, you haven’t walked away.
I will always hold close the moments when my friends refused to leave my side even as I pushed them away. Even those that I eventually lost to the world, they were there calling me out from the edges of the abyss I had fallen in. They saved me. And taught me how to be me but more importantly how to be a friend.
