The "Impossible" Email
Don't Ask. Do.
The email Jessica had to write that day had to do something almost impossible: cancel that night’s party without saying why.
The party was a celebration of eliminating the risk that stalked me for 40 years. My preventative surgery was scheduled for the next morning, and since I’d decided that since my breasts had to go after a lifetime of good service, my sister suggested that they deserved a sendoff. We called it the Bye-Bye Boobies Party.
Then a routine pre-op scan showed something. More scans. A core needle biopsy. Then the call from my surgeon with bad news. Then, several hours of telling the right people in the right order while also seeking an oncologist. And somewhere in there, two hundred friends were still planning to show up that night for a party we couldn’t have.
The Order of Operations
So Jessica wrote the email. No explanation. Because the order of operations meant my husband had to know before my friends did, and I wanted to tell him in person. Any version of “why” could leak to the wrong place.
That email is the whole episode in miniature. The thing nobody tells you about being well-supported through a crisis is this:
The deepest support comes from someone who’s knows you well enough to do the impossible without instructions.
Catch the entire funny and heartfelt episode
Spotify | Apple | YouTube | Everywhere
A Different Kind of Support
Jessica has been my best friend for 25 years. A licensed clinical psychologist. When I found out I had breast cancer, she assumed a role that only she could fill.
The Commitment: Lifting weights with me, three mornings a week, in my home gym.
The Reason: Not because we needed the workouts. Because she needed to see how I was actually doing.
The Truth: The one place a person can’t fake an answer is under a heavy bar.
We talk about the cancelled party, the workouts, a THC-loopy walk through Burlingame that ended in bagels, and the surgeon Jessica described as “an artist” before I’d ever met her. And we get into something I think a lot of us have wrong about showing up for someone in trouble.
If you’ve ever wondered whether you’re doing it right when a friend is in crisis, or whether anyone’s doing it right for you, I think you’ll find something here.
→ Catch the episode
Spotify | Apple | YouTube | Everywhere
For paid subscribers: This week’s deep piece walks through Jessica’s actual playbook, and the research on why designed support correlates with measurably better outcomes.