How to be a good friend to someone when they're going through something you don't understand.

Your best friend is having a baby.  Or just learned they have cancer.  Or is moving to another country.  Or just converted to a religion you are concerned is extreme.  Or is having a sex change.  If you are finding yourself without solid footing as a very close friend of yours embarks on a major change that is completely foreign to you, have no fear.  You can still be a strong supportive rock for them, even if you don't know the first thing about what they need from you.

First, attempt to understand the very basics of what they're going to do.  Next learn about all of the likely impacts this will have on them personally.  Then sort out which of those impacts you can help soften and which you can't.  Start forming a plan for all the impacts you can help soften and consider what your friend might appreciate the most.  Then put your plan into action.  This will achieve many things.  Your friend will feel seen/heard/cared for, period.  Your friend will have an easier time with the transition and the new reality directly because of your kindness and actions.  Your friend will value you and more like carry you with them through this next chapter and future chapters.

If they're pregnant - ask chat GPT the most common challenges and impact on new parents with a newborn at home.  You'll learn is finances, sleep deprivation, juggling work/home life with constant newborn needs, and chiefly a huge paradigm shift where you realize you are much lower on the list and this won't change for many years.  Now that you know the basics you can think about the symptoms / impact of this change on your friends and develop practical methods for supporting them.  Determine what you can do something about and what you can.  Do you have a lot of money?  Buy them a month of a night nurse so they can both get some sleep.  Buy them a 3-month subscription to a premium diaper delivery service.  Buy them a meal delivery service because they will at times completely forget to feed themselves.  You don't have money to throw at this?  Give them the gift of research.  Send them insights online from parents with invaluable fixes to newbie mistakes.  Offer to babysit for free once per week or once per month.  Bring them a home cooked meal once per week, or however often you can (or better yet freeze several meals for them to use when needed).

Okay, so it's not a baby.  It's cancer.  Same rules apply.  Learn the basics of what kind of cancer they have, likely treatments, and the decision tree of their potential journey.  Then look into side effects, common ways people makes themselves more comfortable, and think through the ways your friend's life will change short-term and long-term as a result.  Then separate what you can help with and what you can't.  Form a plan to be helpful.

See the pattern?