It’s never easy to come up with the right words to say when someone you care about is seriously ill. Writer/illustrator Emily McDowell knew all that too well after she was diagnosed with Stage 3 Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
On her website, she wrote:
“The most difficult part of my illness wasn’t losing my hair, or being erroneously called ‘sir’ by Starbucks baristas, or sickness from chemo. It was the loneliness and isolation I felt when many of my close friends and family members disappeared because they didn’t know what to say or said the absolute wrong thing without realizing it.”
This painful experience inspired her to create Empathy Cards so that “the recipients of these cards [can] feel seen, understood, and loved.”
Here are eight of them:
Visit Emily McDowell Studio’s shop to get the card(s) you need.