How do you help despair?

Last night at 11 p.m. my phone rang.  This is never a good thing. It was for me and I had a conversation with this person about a mutual acquaintance who has announced...to a third party...that they are going to kill themselves after the New Year.

Okay.  Fine.  What do you do?  The person in question is dealing with financial dire straights just like the rest of us.  They lost their job, they cannot afford their home.  They have no family near by.  BUT...they have friends.  Friends who have offered their home to this person to ease their burden.  Friends who have invited them in to their home for Christmas.  But at this time of year when the scenario is all too familiar, it's not enough.

This person has children and grandchildren - though none are close by and they are all in tough financial situations themselves so they can be of no help in the way this person wants them to be.  In a nutshell, this person feels total despair and would rather die than continue to live like this.  They've said that they will wait until after the new year to do this so as to not burden the children and grandchildren and ruin their holiday.

So...what do you do?  How do you tell someone to NOT kill themselves when you have no solution as to how to get their life back together?  How do you show them that their family LOVES them when for most of their life, it didn't seem to matter because they really only lived for themself?  How do you be an encouragement when you are 600 miles or 1200 miles away?  How do you MAKE other people go over there and walk in to this emotional nightmare?

I cried all night.  Now I feel despair and I don't know how to help.  I don't know what I am supposed to do.  There are no words coming to me and yet I know if I choose to say NOTHING that I will live with that horror and guilt for the rest of my life.