My latest iVoices on iVillage report is more of a personal conversation I had with my friend, Lisa, a breast cancer survivor and as she likes to call herself, thriver. I love that! I remember the day Lisa told me about her diagnosis and I remember the night we went out to dinner to celebrate her cure.
A year ago, I was inspired to write a post about offering specific help which is advice I think everyone can benefit from. The friend who inspired that post is Lisa.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Christine, what a wonderful friend you are!! What a huge relief it must have been to know that her children were well cared for during those hard days after her treatments.
What a great video…you guys look like pros
Thanks, Jen! I could have done so much more, but I’m happy to have learned the lesson about offering specific help.
This is a wonderful post. Thank you Lisa for sharing and I love how Christine pointed out to be specific when offering help. Great job ladies, educating and spreading.
Thank you, Stasha. I will pass along your kind words to Lisa
this was an amazing video. You are right about being specific. My friend was diagnosed and our church just asked her which days she needed meals and we gave her meals, helped with her kids. I am so happy for Lisa! YAY for thriving!! (my friend kicked Breast cancer’s butt too!)
Thank you, Annie! You know what’s interesting is I pitched this story to iVillage a year ago with the focus being on offering specific help. I love how a year later we could include the fact that Lisa is cured!
This is great advice, and it doesn’t only apply to something going through cancer! That kind of thing really helped me when my first husband died, and helps my sister-in-law after my brother died. Anyone that has had their world shaken in such a dramatic way can be helped like this, I think. Thanks for sharing, both of you!
Greta, you are absolutely right. When I wrote my first post about offering specific help, I was inspired by a moment in my life where I had a friend diagnosed with cancer, a friend who’d just given birth, and a friend whose mom died. They all benefitted from others being thoughtful and offering specific help. Every time I catch myself saying, “Let me know if I can help,” I try to make a point and think about exactly what I could do to relieve the person in some way, however big or small.