Naturally when a family member, friend or colleague experiences bereavement, you will want to send some heartfelt words of sympathy – but sometimes it can be hard to know what to write. To help focus your thoughts, we’ve gathered together a selection of sympathy messages, quotes and poems.
Begin with a simple message of sympathy for their loss. Show that you care but try not to be overly wordy.
If you knew the deceased, but not the surviving partner or family members to whom you’re sending a sympathy message, it might be helpful to mention your connection to their loved one i.e. you knew them from college, through work, etc.
It can be comforting for someone who is grieving to find out why their loved one was special or appreciated by others. Think about what you liked or valued about the person who has passed away and add that into your message.
If you know the bereaved person well, they may appreciate an offer of help or support. It is usually better to be specific about what you can do, so think about their individual circumstances and suggest practical and useful things you could do to help.
Sympathy by Emily Bronte
There should be no despair for you
While nightly stars are burning,
While evening pours its silent dew
And sunshine gilds the morning.
There should be no despair – though tears
May flow down like a river:
Are not the best beloved of years
Around your heart forever?
They weep – you weep – it must be so;
Winds sigh as you are sighing,
And Winter sheds his grief in snow
Where Autumn’s leaves are lying:
Yet these revive, and from their fate
Your fate cannot be parted,
Then journey on, if not elate,
Still, never broken-hearted!
I measure every grief by Emily Dickinson
I measure every grief I meet
With analytic eyes;
I wonder if it weighs like mine,
Or has an easier size.
I wonder if they bore it long,
Or did it just begin?
I could not tell the date of mine,
It feels so old a pain.
I wonder if it hurts to live,
And if they have to try,
And whether, could they choose between,
They would not rather die.
I wonder if when years have piled–
Some thousands–on the cause
Of early hurt, if such a lapse
Could give them any pause;
Or would they go on aching still
Through centuries above,
Enlightened to a larger pain
By contrast with the love.
The grieved are many, I am told;
The reason deeper lies,–
Death is but one and comes but once
And only nails the eyes.
There’s grief of want, and grief of cold,–
A sort they call ‘despair,’
There’s banishment from native eyes,
In sight of native air.
And though I may not guess the kind
Correctly yet to me
A piercing comfort it affords
In passing Calvary,
To note the fashions of the cross
Of those that stand alone
Still fascinated to presume
That some are like my own.
