When CC's mother died ten years ago I didn't know what to say either. I called her perpetually in the days that followed, took her out for a lot of drinks she couldn't handle. Distracted the hell out of her. I wasn't much help but I was definitely there. At the service I wore red, which was what her mother had requested we do, and felt vampish and simultaneously frightened. I didn't want to go to the receiving line but there was no way around it.
Her father was wobbly, the result of back pain pills which no one begrudged him, and I watched myself like a character in a bad comedy shake his hand and start chattering about how pleased I was to see he'd found his pants in time for the service. This was because in his hazy confusion, poor man, he had wandered into the kitchen in his underwear while I was visiting earlier in the day. He told me several weeks later that in the flood of sorry-for-your-losses, I was the only one who had congratulated him on a find. Way to be remembered. It was difficult to follow this up with anything more impressive but I managed to... I slept with her brother later that afternoon. I don't know which of us that was supposed to make feel better. I'm such a supportive friend; there's nothing I wouldn't do for that family.
No one knows what to say to me. My father lives too far to be spotted in his underwear and I have no brother.
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