There is no gentle way.

The words are the words, and no amount of care in the delivery can soften what they mean, and the person who must speak them has to stand there and watch the meaning land and break a stranger’s world in half.

David did it for me because Marcus could not, and he did it with as much tenderness as such a thing can hold, and I have loved him for it every day since.

But I would not have been in his shoes for anything.