Helpful Things To Say & Do When Someone Dies

Offer comfort and condolences meaningfully.

By Angela Taylor — Written on Jun 25, 2019

Photo: Isis França on Unsplash

Condolences & Sympathy Messages: What To Say When Someone Dies

We just laid a newborn to rest.

My oldest son and his wife had waited a long time for this joyous event. They did everything right, and this was still the outcome.

I will never know their pain. But I will carry them and be available to them. I will sit and cry with them.

Death is hard for humans to understand and for us to wrap our brains around. So knowing what to say or do when someone dies — how to comfort a mourner, express your condolences or even send sympathy messages that say more than "sorry for your loss" — is deeply complicated.

Death seems easier to come to grips with when the person has lived and experienced a long life. It is still devastating to their loved ones. There is a history and memories that may help with the grieving but will never replace their presence.

The death of an infant, child, teenager, or young adult seems to be much more challenging to understand.

The parents will have lots of times when they will wish their child was there with them, and no one will be able to ever change that. The parents will have many quiet moments of mourning.

The most important thing any of us can do for those who are mourning is to sit and listen.

Cry with them. Judgment and your own opinions or viewpoints are irrelevant.

No one can fix dead.

We all want to do something. We would all raise the dead if we had that gift. Instead, we say the only words that come to our mouths, or we say nothing at all.

Asking if the family is “OK” is not helpful. No, they are not OK.

There is a ginormous hole where a person used to be. They are working through what the death means. They are trying to figure out who or what is to blame or they are coming to terms with the fact that there is no one and nothing to blame. it just is.

They are immediately required to plan the funeral. To answer everyone’s questions. To help everyone else understand what they themselves do not understand.

Everyone expects them to be present right now and they cannot. They are elsewhere. They are in an in-between place.

At first, they feel as though it’s all a nightmare and they will soon wake up. This can’t be real. It has to be a sick joke and it will be over soon.

Then it hits like an unexpected expected wave — the wave you know is coming, but you don’t know when it will hit you.

The wave that takes your breath away and leaves you drowning in uncontrollable grief and tears.

In this moment, they need life to be as simple as possible.

Take whatever you can off their plate. Give them time and space to mourn.

After a death, life goes on around the grieving person or family. Everything appears to be moving at the speed of light, while their days move by slowly. Time slows down for them.

Everything else happening in the world feels frivolous and unimportant.

Mourning is a time to lift the person and/or family up.

Listen to their words. Love on them.

Do not try to fix it or to counsel them. They are not ready, and you most likely do not have the entire story from their viewpoint, so your counsel is likely to cause more harm than good.

Mourning is a process that takes months and years to go through. Each person will move through the grieving process at their own pace.

There is no set time limit for grieving, so telling someone that it’s time to stop grieving and move on is never helpful.

If someone is grieving and you think of them, call them, email them, send a card, check in on them, reach out to them, love them — never avoid them.

They will understand if all you can do is hold them in silence because often times there are no words to express what you are really feeling, and there are no words to make it all better.

Band-aids don’t work here.