How to support my best friend?

[QueenOfIce]

My best friends mum has been battling cancer for a while and yesterday was told it is now terminal.

All are obviously devastated and I want to be the best support I can be. My mum died last year of cancer but I had very little time with her so my experience is more of her later stages and death.

I don't want to harp on about my experience hers will be her own and she has a few years with her mum so I want her to be able to talk about everything and I will be right beside her all the way but I am not sure how to support her positively given her mum has 2 plus years left which wasn't my experience. What I'm trying to say (badly) is how to I not discuss the death aspect but support her in the best way I can for the time her mum has left.

I hope that came across right.

I think you just need to keep the lines of communication open and make it clear you are there to talk about whatever and whenever. Even if it's something she feels she shouldn't voice or feels guilty about even thinking or laughing when that feels so wrong but is the only thing that stops you from howling. You are there to listen to her and be her rock as much as you can. You might not have experienced the period of "waiting" involved but you have experienced the loss and thus I suspect can empathise that having someone prepared to listen is invaluable.