OP, no advice but I am wishing peace for your friend.

Anonymous wrote:A wonderful wonderful friend of mine just entered hospice. She only has a few days left, she just sent out an email letting us know what is going on. This wasn't a surprise, she has late stage cancer, what do I say to her? I am heartbroken, she is being taken too early, and she is one of those amazing people that only seems to come into your life every so often...

Tell her you love her and how much being her friend has enriched your life. Then let her talk and laugh and smile with her. She will lead you. She is probably weak and may not be able to talk very much. Bring a favorite book of poems and read to her.

Did you ever see the show where the woman is dying of ovarian cancer and one of her friends comes in and reads her a story from a children's book that she is taking to her grandchild.

I am sorry you are losing your friend but she will live on in your memory. Peace to both of you and peace to her spirit.

I would follow her lead a bit. My last friend to die young (there have been a few) just didn't want to talk about the fact he was dying for a long, long time. I don't think he was in denial -- I think he was trying to be strong for his mother, who was a mess. Then one afternoon, right after a big procedure (which meant he had narrowly avoided imminent death, but not death a couple of months later) I was visiting him in the hospital and he said "My mother thinks I'm cured. And I'm not." And we finally talked about it -- not enough, I think in retrospect, but some, and at a time he was ready to do it.

I'm so sorry. It is hard to know if you are saying/doing what they need, particularly since it requires you to face your own fears.

Tell her that you are proud to have known her.