I wonder if it would help (bit nervous about this comment because it looks like giving advice, and I haven't had the frustration myself) to explicitly preface the sharing with an explicit request not to give advice?

I have been on the other end of that: when the father of a friend of mine passed away they explicitly said they did not want sympathy but instead to do something fun that night, and we did. Years later I still remember that because it felt somewhat as an eye-opener that people can just be that candid.