Last summer, when my California family arrived in Cambridge, England, for a vacation, enormously jetlagged and utterly exhausted, I ran into an old friend in the cluster of college buildings where we’d be staying for the next month. My daughter and I were on a walk just to stay awake before dark when Shelley popped out of her apartment, huge smile on her face, to greet us with open arms.
She and I hugged and briefly caught up – my family had spent half a year in the city the previous year so we’d grown close – and she then asked one simple question: What small thing would help you right now?
Not: Can I do something for you?
Not: How can I help?
Not the terribly generic and unhelpful: Let me know if you need anything. (Anything???!)
But: What small thing would help you right now?
Something about the specificity, the smallness of it, was a revelation.
Had she framed the question in another way, I certainly would have said, “We don’t need anything! We’re fine! Thanks so much for asking!” But given how straightforward her ask was, I felt like I could make a little request: After 18 hours of traveling and flying on a crowded plane and sitting through the long cab ride from London, my daughter was now begging for ice cream. But there was no way to get that unless we walked 20 minutes into town, which we were not going to do. So, I turned to Shelley and asked: Do you happen to have any form of ice cream in your freezer?
She stepped back into her kitchen and procured an ice cream sandwich. I cannot begin to tell you how welcome and loved and cared for this made us feel. And I know that it made Shelley happy, too.
This simple question has been a game-changer for me: so often we can’t solve a friend’s big problem so we shy away from trying. How could I alleviate a friend’s heartbreak over her divorce, her parent’s death, her teen struggling to fit in? I am not a therapist! Nor a magician!
But I can – we all can – offer a piece of comfort by offering something direct and actionable in the moment. Sometimes all a friend needs is a walk. A salad drop-off. For you to pick up their kids from school so she can take a nap. A phone call. A cookie delivery. A shoulder to cry on, just for now. A book delivered to her doorstep. A coffee handed over without a word.
What small thing would help right now? In a time when suffering is everywhere, I’ve found this approach to be a guiding light. Shelley surely didn’t know that all we’d ask for on that beautiful July evening was an ice cream sandwich that had been sitting idle in her freezer. But she met us exactly where we were and made our arrival that much sweeter. We walked back to our empty place feeling not only welcome but seen. There is no better gift than that.
That’s what I want more of in 2025: to find ways to show up for my friends and family in the smallest, most specific ways that please them. Because those small ways, it turns out, add up to something. In fact, they are everything.
Abigail Rasminsky is a writer and editor based in Los Angeles. She teaches creative writing at the Keck School of Medicine of USC and writes the weekly newsletter, People + Bodies. She has also written for Cup of Jo on many topics, including marriage, preteens, and only children.
P.S. How to write a condolence note, and what are your simple pleasures?
(Photo by Duet Postscriptum/Stocksy.)
