Ceci n’est pas un blog.

I love writing, I think I’m ok at it, and I do it a lot. One area where I consistently seem to fail at writing is finding the words for sympathy cards. I love handwritten notes and often save them, but writing them myself is extra difficult. I often sit at my desk, with a pen hovering above a blank card and completely freeze. As deeply as I think about loss and ponder how people live their lives after loss, I fall embarrassingly short when trying to express my support after someone else’s loss. Truthfully, it almost brings up a feeling of shame because I feel I should have more skill and ease in this area.

Suffice it to say though, “I’m sorry for your loss” is hot garbage.

When I told people my dad was sick, I frequently got the response of “I’m so sorry!” These people meant well, of course, and this phrase is considered the socially acceptable thing to say. The challenge for me in these interactions was my response. I often became so uncomfortable, completely unsure of any response at all. I would freeze and give an awkward smile. Thanks, I guess? My mom started responding with, “Yeah, I’m sorry too.” And weren’t we all, facing the impending loss? Still, I have wished for more a more graceful way to answer.

This awkwardness of mine extends to writing sympathy cards. I don’t want to simply say, “Sorry for your loss” because there seems to be an ocean of feelings I’d like to express. “Omg, that sucks” only works for certain recipients (although it works quite well, when appropriate). How does one express the depth of feeling, and in a way that is actually helpful?

For some reason, my smallish team at work has experienced a surprising number of losses of family members this summer. Some of them have been old and sick, like my dad. Some just sick, from chronic illness. And some neither old nor sick, making the level of shock a noteworthy factor at play. For example, one of my coworkers recently joined what I tastelessly refer to as The Dead Siblings Club. She lost her sibling in a tragic and mostly unexpected way which had remarkable and awful parallels to the loss of my little brother. I’ve been a member of this club for 16 years already, and still, thinking of the early weeks and months after that loss, they were some of the most painful experiences I’ve ever had and probably ever will. And I somehow wanted to convey to my coworker that while I don’t precisely know how she feels, I have been walking a similar path for quite a long time.

Saying to this coworker, “I’m so sorry for your loss” felt hollow and cheap. I wanted to convey so much more to her, about how I know that the feeling of anguish seems like it will never leave, but eventually things do start to look different. Eventually you can sort of learn to breathe again. I have no magic advice for this. It took years for me to be able to talk about my brother without dissolving into sobs or becoming even a bit teary. Immediately after he died, I spent about two weeks straight lying on the sofa in my parents’ den, mostly staring at the ceiling. A lot of people reached out to me at the time, and of course I appreciated their love and support, but I had no words and no energy to respond. And no matter how amazing their written support, whether cards or emails, nothing seemed to penetrate the thick fog of grief that I wading through at the time.

I often avoid asking people who recently went through a loss, “How are you?” Because honestly, what kind of question is that? I’ve always hated answering that question in this context, and so I try to skip asking it. In the case of my coworker, I did ask her how she’s been doing since her loss, but I prefaced it with the disclaimer that the question was stupid and essentially meaningless. Fortunately, she laughed. It led to a conversation about how she has really been doing, given the chaos of her past few weeks.

Is there ever a truly correct answer to show support after someone else’s loss? Obviously it very much depends on who one is talking to, what their loss was, and one’s own relationship with that person to begin with. I strive for the non-generic. Probably I miss the mark more often than I’d care to. I’d like to include some helpful phrases here for others to use in these situations, but honestly, I’m not sure I have any. I think what I have found most helpful to read is an acknowledgment of how major of a change is in my own life. Nobody can do anything about that, but it feels helpful to have someone notice that this loss turns the world upside down.

And I think that’s the most important take away here: send the card. Say something, even if it is “Sorry for your loss.” Walking around carrying grief can feel like stepping onto an alien planet, and it’s nice to be noticed in this situation, rather than trying to blend in like nothing at all has happened. The best thing to say to someone who’s grieving? I see you.