Do not require optimism as the price of being good company during uncertainty.

People waiting on bad possibilities often find they must reassure everyone around them before anything else can happen. Say it will be fine, so the visitor is comfortable, so the conversation can continue. That arrangement puts the heaviest person in the room in charge of everybody else’s mood, and it makes honest company impossible.

When someone tells you the frightening version, sit with it rather than correcting it. You can say you do not know how it will go, that you are glad they said it, and that you are not going anywhere.