How do you write a condolence letter? How to you write in a way that the other person knows you feel their loss and "live with them" (medeleven)?
I searched my email for the word "condolence". What appeared were messages from three years ago... from my colleagues, from friends, from the ex. I read them, and emotions flooded back. People write words and they can be so powerful still when you read them years later. But do they mean them? Do words lose their meaning with time? Do people forget their good intentions and the compassionate understanding they expressed with words?
One wrote that the coming weeks, months and years will be difficult as I process the emotions and realities... One wrote about how he admired my strength and courage over the years... another wrote about being there for me no matter what...
As we experience loss, personally and also through others, do we learn how to deal with loss and how to comfort those who have lost loved ones? What words are appropriate, just, and lasting that will still retain their meaning through time and space?
May the souls and minds of the departed rest... may the living and those left behind heal and learn to cope with that void and loss. Nothing is easy. And no words, however comforting they are meant to be, however beautiful and eloquent, can do justice to emotions and the depths of memories and lives we have shared with loved ones.
I searched my email for the word "condolence". What appeared were messages from three years ago... from my colleagues, from friends, from the ex. I read them, and emotions flooded back. People write words and they can be so powerful still when you read them years later. But do they mean them? Do words lose their meaning with time? Do people forget their good intentions and the compassionate understanding they expressed with words?
One wrote that the coming weeks, months and years will be difficult as I process the emotions and realities... One wrote about how he admired my strength and courage over the years... another wrote about being there for me no matter what...
As we experience loss, personally and also through others, do we learn how to deal with loss and how to comfort those who have lost loved ones? What words are appropriate, just, and lasting that will still retain their meaning through time and space?
May the souls and minds of the departed rest... may the living and those left behind heal and learn to cope with that void and loss. Nothing is easy. And no words, however comforting they are meant to be, however beautiful and eloquent, can do justice to emotions and the depths of memories and lives we have shared with loved ones.
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