I have a favorite joke, one I was first told when I was very young and it goes "once upon a time there were two tomatoes out for a walk. Then they came to a big road and decided to cross it, while they were in the middle of the street a giant truck comes and runs over one of the tomatoes. Then the other tomato says 'come on ketchup let's go'". It can seem like a rather crass thing to say when your friend is laying there, crushed on the pavement, but in reality, well as real as a silly childhood joke can get the tomato that's still a ripe full tomato is doing it's ketchupy friend a favor. It's saying "You're not a tomato anymore, but you're something else, and you're still my friend and I still want you to come along." It's also acknowleding that something has happened, that it's friend has changed.
Often in times of major changes it's easy for friends, relatives, co-workers, employers and such to try to overlook it because of their own unwillingness to deal with the subject, and whoever is having a crisis is expected to come out of it exactly the way they went into it. That's not how it goes. Life happens to all of us and it changes us. The one that remains exactly the same throughout life is doing something seriously wrong. It doesn't mean that you become someone completely different, just that you're a more evolved version of yourself.
So, when our friends fall down and life slaps them in the face, it's not all about saying "it's ok", it's also about saying "my goodness, you're ketchup now and you're needed and loved just as much for what you've become as you were for what you were before". Ignoring the fall is close to lying. You can't tell ketchup that it's a plumb cherry tomato with spring in it's step.
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