legit the best advice i can give you: feed your friends
any time someone is in any kind of crisis or upheaval, offer to feed them. tell them they don't have to choose what it is if they can't make decisions, just ask about allergies and preferences and tell them you're just gonna make food happen at their house.
friend having a baby? delivery gift certificate to order food to the hospital after the kid shows up.
someone's relative passes away? offer to make them dinner.
buddy gets laid off? ask if you can order them lunch.
pal stuck in a depressive episode? offer to drive them to fucking mcdonalds, if that's what they want.
people in crisis are tired and sad and angry and the last thing most of them are doing is thinking about feeding themselves. so if you have the ability or time or money, providing that is always, always a good move.
legit i do this all the time, and it is 100% always appreciated. i have taught all my friends that when something happens, we feed each other. it makes people feel extremely cared for, and I cannot recommend it enough.
Right after I reblogged this I found out a friends’ mom was hospitalized — this is such a good reminder
If you can, provide disposable plates/utensils and save them from doing dishes — when my husband was diagnosed with cancer, bulk paper products were our most appreciated gift
In late June of 2019, one of my partners ended up in the hospital unexpectedly. We hadn't moved to Portland yet, so it was just me, and not me and my wife, taking care of my partner, who had their meds screwed up by a doctor just out of meds school and ended up with their heart completely not behaving and their blood sugar on the fucking moon, and me, quietly freaking out.
My friend Kate got a bunch of our friends together and bought us a shit-ton of Uber Eats gift cards. The entire week Emet was in the hospital, I ordered salad with salmon on it for dinner. It was about as much as a burger and fries would have been from one of the places that can make gluten-free stuff for me, and I didn't have to do anything but poke a few buttons on an app.
It was genuinely one of the nicest things anybody has ever done for me. I think about it all the time, and I've tried to replicate it for others as a result. We felt so loved and so cared for.
When my mom was diagnosed with cancer, people would say "if you need help with anything let us know!" and we asked for food, because Mom was so tired from chemotherapy that she couldn't cook, and between my own mental health spiral and executive dysfunction, I wasn't great at it either.
Neither of us really had dietary restrictions at the time, except "no red meat," but we didn't actually get food from people. It would've been really, really helpful when she was losing weight because apparently irradiating your intestines means you don't digest calories properly, but no one actually followed through with food. Not church, not friends, not anyone in our social circle.
Feed your friends.
