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The original was posted on /r/lifeprotips by /u/arteether on 2025-06-27 21:49:31+00:00.

My friend’s dad recently passed away from cancer. We are both students in different states but I live close to our hometown. (Information matters because we don’t get any holidays so I can only visit on weekends)

It happened a week ago I came to know now because she was too sad to talk before. Everything in me wants to run and hug her. But as I talked to her today she said she has so many relatives coming in and out and how much she hates it, I wondered if that was a good idea??

I asked her she said she can’t talk about the same thing rn and she hates how everyone is acting. I understand that, and I wanna honor it, but I saw many people say that they were glad their loved one just came without giving them a choice and that they needed it.

Some context is we used to be best friends and now we are just people who check up on each other once in a while. So i don’t wanna impose or suddenly be there a lot when we didn’t really have that kind of a relationship for some time now.

I just listened to her talk. She is at her family home so no need to bring food or do the dishes etc. I was wondering how else can I help, without being too much. And if i should just go visit her or visit her when everything dies down a little. The relatives will still be here for 13 more days so I will likely have to go when they are present, and she will have to go back to college after that.

Please help i really wanna be there for her. She is devestated and i wanna do any small of big thing to make her feel a bit better. Also would it be a good idea to check up on her regularly now when our friendship breakup wasn’t on very good terms (but we still have been very civil afterwards with each other) (this was 3 yrs ago)

Edit: thank you for all the responses, but to add some more context.

1. Our states for college are 2 days away by train, so can’t physically hangout.
2. She has house help and maids taking care of the food and cleanliness at home. And i can’t really go to her dorm because it’s so far away
3. I asked her 3 times in different ways (don’t worry i wasn’t imposing) if she wants me to come rn, she said to come later, hence this post, I wanted to ask what i should do. Cause I saw many people mention they appreciated their friends being there without asking.
4. As i mentioned our friendship isn’t how it used to be, so to suddenly call so much, would it be appreciated and appropriate? Would it not come off as pity? The last thing I wanna do is make things worse than they already are.
5. I asked her if she wants to live with me for the time being but she mentioned in her culture she can’t go out for at least 13 days, and has to take care of her mom.

Regardless i might not go today (because she told me to) but I will go next week. So i just wanna ask what do I say to her? Do i not talk about it at all? Do i talk about mundane things? As for people who mentioned saving the date for the death anniversary, what do you say then?

I am sorry if the questions seem very juvenile this is my first time dealing with something like this.