Simply listening to someone with cancer may sound easy, but is oftentimes surprisingly hard. We want to make things better. We want to fix things. But a listening ear is often what “helps” the most. Let your loved one express his feelings, even if those feelings make you uncomfortable. You can be fairly certain that if your loved one brings up a difficult topic, such as dying, he has been thinking about it for a while. Allow him the opportunity to have the comfort of sharing. Don’t judge, don’t interrupt, and listen with your eyes and body, not only your ears.
