Words
of Comfort and Sympathy
for Friends in Grief
It's
difficult to watch friends struggle with the death of a loved
one. You want to express your sympathy and regret, but how?
What words can you say or write to bring them comfort? And what
if you bring their pain back to the surface? (In reality, the
pain is already there, bringing it to the surface doesn't make
it hurt any more.) What if you make them feel even worse than
they already do? (In reality, that's probably not possible.)
For the most part, just being there for your friend is a good start.
Asking how they are, beyond the first month or so, is a meaningful gesture. Here are a few other things you can do to help:
The Best Words of Comfort
The
best words of comfort you can give is to tell or write to
your friends about your memories of their loved one. They
will treasure your memories more than you can know.
So that everyone can share their memories...
Even better than sharing your own memories is to collaborate with others others so that everyone who knew this person can share their favorite stories and photographs, then have them all printed and bound into a memorial tribute book that makes a unique sympathy gift for the family.
An new online system, called the iMemoryBook system, is now available to allow you to do this all over the Internet, creating heirloom quality books without your having to know anything about printing and publication.
For Grieving Children
If the one who passed away had children under 18, you can submit their names to receive a free iMemoryBook subscription, and give these children a gift they will be forever grateful for.
Preserve online condolences, add memories, create a printed keepsake book
Create a permanent legacy from the online condolences your friend receives, add photos and more memories, and they can be automatically printed and bound into a comforting keepsake book they will treasure.
Nice, easy to make homemade bereavement gift
Find a remembrance poem or quote that you feel would be meaningful to your friend. Print it out on nice paper and frame it with a favorite photograph of their loved one.
Share what you've discovered
If you feel the information in this site is valuable (see the Remembering a Loved One section for the main content), share it with your friends to let them know you are thinking about them.
Remember this:
When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.
~ Henri Nouwen, Out of Solitude
For further guidance, here
are a couple of books that give advice on what to do for friends
in grief:
And here
are a few other resources on the web that can help you know
what to do:
How
have you helped a friend in grief? Share
your story to be posted here to help others.
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"The heart hath its own memory, like
the mind. And in it are enshrined
the precious keepsakes, into which is wrought the giver's loving
thought."
~ H.W. Longfellow
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