Writing to someone whose person has just died

The condolence letter is the one people most want a script for, and the one a script most reliably ruins.

The impulse to reach for a formula is understandable. You are frightened of getting it wrong, and a borrowed phrase feels safe. But the borrowed phrase is the failure. Anyone in the first weeks of loss receives a great many messages, and after a while they begin to sound like one long murmur of the same three sentences. What cuts through is a letter that could only have come from you, about a person you actually knew, in words you would actually use. If you did not know the person who died, say so plainly and write about the reader instead: what you know of them, what you are willing to do, when you will next be in touch.

Practically: name the death rather than gesturing at it. Say the person's name. Offer one memory, chosen for its ordinariness rather than its grandeur, because the ordinary is what the bereaved are missing most sharply. Then stop. Do not explain the loss, do not look for meaning in it, do not tell the reader how they will feel in six months. You do not know, and the letter is not the place to guess. A closing offer should be concrete or absent: a vague standing invitation is a burden, since it asks the reader to do the asking.

Length is not a measure of care. Six honest sentences, sent in the first fortnight, are worth more than a page that arrives when the casseroles have stopped and everyone has gone quiet. If the letter feels too short, it is probably about right.