"Friends are people who help you be more yourself".
--Merle Shain

Sad, scared, confused, mad, uncomfortable, worried, unbelieving, guilty, clueless….

If you're a friend of a teen who has cancer, maybe you're feeling all these feelings. You might be asking yourself:

"How can it be?"

"What am I supposed to say? What should I do?"

Of course, you want to help your friend and be there when you're needed most. But man, it's hard. In your head, you hear yourself saying all the things you can't say out loud:

"What if I lose my best friend?"

"If it happened to him, could it happen to me?";

To make things even harder, your friend is pretending that everything is OK. When you ask how things are going, she/he says:

"Not to worry. Everything's under control. I'm fine."

(P.S. Watch out for that 4-letter word that starts with "F" - F-I-N-E.

It almost never means fine. There is usually something else going on.)

Does this sound like what you're going through?

If so, you are like a lot of other kids trying to figure out what to do. Being a good friend when your friend has cancer is tough and it really doesn't seem fair at times. Heck, this is supposed to be the best time of your life, right? Yeah right, but here you are…

This section is for you to share your thoughts and feelings about being a friend.

• Do you have good advice to share?
• A funny story to tell?
• A touching memory to recall?
• A question to ask?

Let us know.
Every now and then, we'll offer some of our ideas, too.