Editor’s Note: Lee Woodruff is the author of the upcoming memoir Perfectly Imperfect: A Life in Progress (Random House), which hits bookstores April 21. Visit her website at www.leewoodruff.com.

There it was on the card shelf: "Sometimes, Life Hands You a Hell Sandwich." It was the perfect sympathy card for my friend Karin, who had recently and unexpectedly lost her mother.

OK, so it might not have been the most traditional of condolence cards, but sometimes, when it comes to a good girlfriend, you know just what is required. All my years of being a friend, sister, wife and mother have taught me that laughter usually trumps all, even under the most absurd circumstances.

Karin’s mother had suffered a heart attack. She was headed out the door to work at the school for disabled children, where she was a beloved occupational therapist. She had been a pioneer in her field, developing new treatments and methods, obtaining her PhD, ministering to thousands of people over a lifetime. They found four fresh-baked blueberry muffins wrapped in her purse, bound for some deserving soul.

There was the long week in a coma, the final diagnosis of brain death and the agonizing decision to pull the plug. Karin’s slight form, alternating between hunched and ramrod straight, was operating purely on adrenaline by the morning of the funeral. She had relied on friends, family and her need to be needed up to this point. But soon, there would be a collapse, a realization, a tailspin into pure grief, without the protective coating of necessary decisions and funeral arrangements. She would need us, her circle of girlfriends, then.

What is it about us women?  Most of us know instinctively what to do, precisely what to say. We know that food is helpful, we do the dishes in the sink without being told, we clear our places, we remember the birthday or the fact that our widowed neighbor has Saturday night free. We accompany our sisters to the wig shop after chemo and buy the pink rabbit vibrator for the newly divorced friend, laughing as we voraciously read the instructions.

I look at men, especially in times of tragedy, and I pity them. The common language of emotionally easing a friend through a hard time seems to elude them. They play basketball or sit silently together at a shellacked bar with ESPN muted overhead.

"What did you guys talk about?" I’ll ask my husband when he comes back from some fulcrum event like a reunion or a rare boys’ weekend.

"I dunno, sports … stuff, I guess. Guy stuff."

We all know the reasons, the Mars/Venus arguments. Men use the left sides of their brains to problem solve, while we women use both sides, allowing us to multitask with ease. Men generally talk about sports, politics, work, money and cars, while women gravitate toward relationships, people, clothing and, yes, physical appearance.

In general, men function as problem solvers, while women often don’t want the problem solved. I may be livid at a client for some perceived slight, but I don’t want to fire them. I simply want my husband to listen, to understand and empathize.

My husband comes from a family of four boys, and I’m from a family with three girls. There are many difficult conversations I know he’d love to have with his brothers — dreams realized and deferred, roads taken and not taken in life. They all need to sit down and discuss the future of their aging parents, and yet they don’t seem to know exactly how to begin. I find that terribly sad.