What to Say to Someone Grieving: Why Words Matter More Than You Think
Grief can make reading hard. Want to listen to this article instead? Find its corresponding podcast episode here.
When someone you care about is grieving, there are moments that feel loaded with the pressure of what to say.
These moments tend to go something like this:
A friend, family member, coworker, or neighbor just told you something heartbreaking. A person died or a relationship ended. Maybe a diagnosis changed everything or a future they counted on is gone.
And now it’s your turn to speak.
It’s almost as if this person has placed their heart onto an invisible table between the two of you, and now you feel the tension—and anxiety—of deciding what to say next.
If you’ve ever been in that moment and felt your mind go blank, you’re not alone.
So many people want to support someone grieving and have no idea what to say.
They worry they’ll offend the person.
They worry they’ll make it worse.
They worry they’ll get pulled into a conversation they don’t know how to handle.
Underneath all of those swirling worries is a very human question: What do I say to someone who is grieving?
It’s one of the most common grief-related questions people type into Google, and for good reason. We know words matter. We can feel that they matter. But many of us have never been taught how to use them when someone is hurting.
In more than 13 years of grieving and ten years of supporting people through loss, I believe that words are one of the most helpful tools we have to support someone grieving.
Not because words can take away pain. Not because there’s a magical phrase that fixes heartbreak. But because words have the power to help grievers feel seen, accompanied, and comforted in the middle of something unbearable.
Let’s talk about the impact of words when grief is in the room.
Why It’s So Hard to Know What to Say to Someone Grieving
Most of us have had the experience of wanting to show up for someone and not knowing how.
You genuinely care. You want to be kind and supportive. You’re doing your best with the information you have—perhaps based on your own experiences with loss.
But when grief enters the conversation, everything can suddenly feel high stakes.
You might hear yourself reaching for something familiar—“I’m sorry,” “I can’t imagine,” “Let me know if you need anything”—and still leave the interaction wondering whether you actually helped.
In my book Of Course I’m Here Right Now: 3 Actually Helpful Things to Say to Someone Grieving, I write:
“In the face of loss, we are all at a loss for words.”
If you’re struggling to find words that feel “right enough” for the situation, it doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you. It means you intuitively—and rightly!—sense that grief is tender territory, and many of us haven’t had much practice being there out loud.
Why So Many of Us Underestimate the Power of Words
Part of the problem is that our culture has given us deeply mixed messages about language. We’re told words don’t matter that much. We’re told “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me”—as if language can’t leave bruises. But our lives tell a different story.
In Of Course I’m Here Right Now I write:
“Words can hurt, because words have the ability to change reality.”
And if words can intensify shame, distance, and pain, then words can also support belonging, validation, and care.
Still, most people never receive any real guidance on how to talk about grief with someone who’s experienced a loss. We learn how to read and write.
We learn how to be productive. We learn how to perform competence. But we do not, by and large, learn how to respond when someone says, “My person died,” or “I’m not okay,” or “My whole life changed.”
That’s not a personal failure. That’s a societal, cultural, communal gap. It’s one I’m on a mission to close—not by giving people a script for every situation, but by helping them realize that words can be part of real, meaningful comfort.
I think that’s part of why this topic matters so much. Generally, people don’t ask me what to say to someone grieving because they’re casually curious. They ask because they care deeply and don’t want to become a reason that their grieving friend or family member feels worse.
In other words, the sentiment behind the question, “What do I say to comfort someone who’s grieving?” is not “I want to make them feel better”; it’s “I don’t want to be the source of further pain.”
That’s such an important distinction. Because it tells us that this isn’t really about being polished or eloquent—or even about cheering someone up. It’s about being careful with someone’s heart at a crucial moment of their lives.
The Cost of Saying Nothing—or Saying Something That Shuts Grief Down
When people don’t know what to say, one of two things often happens. They either reach for a cliché, or they go silent.
Sometimes that silence is literal silence, like the story of one of my clients whose best friend of more than 20 years attended her mother’s funeral then never spoke to her again.
Sometimes it looks like changing the subject, moving the conversation along, or offering a quick “Thinking of you” before stepping back from the conversation. Sometimes it’s a platitude like “Everything happens for a reason” or “Time heals all” that lands with a thud instead of comfort.
While these moments of attempted grief support may seem small to you as a supporter, they can have a large, lasting impact on the griever you’re trying to support.
In Of Course I’m Here Right Now, I write:
“Their pain, which is already unbearable, collides with indifference, ignorance, judgment, or shame, compounding the hurt they feel.”
That collision matters. It teaches grieving people—in a split second—what is and isn’t safe to say in your presence. It shapes whether they open up to you again again. It affects whether your relationship deepens or becomes a place where they keep things surface-level.
In my book, I call this the suffering-to-shutdown phenomenon:
“When suffering-to-shutdown occurs, [grievers] silo [their] pain away from view, and [they] no longer reach out for support when [they] need it.”
That’s one of the reasons I care so much about grief and language. Because the words we use to try to comfort someone don’t just fill space. They set the tone of your relationship. They tell someone, This is a safe space to share your pain, or This isn’t the place for that.
And when someone is grieving, how you define the space of your relationships with words is everything.
Do Words Actually Help Someone Who Is Grieving?
Many of us—including those of us who have grieved before—hold an idea that grief is too big for words—that heartbreak is such a profound experience that language can’t really touch it. But in Of Course I’m Here Right Now I argue that words literally define the world we live in.
We know this from our own lives. We remember the sentence from a parent or teacher that made us feel ashamed. We remember the sentence from a friend or family member that made us feel chosen, understood, encouraged, loved. We carry words with us. Sometimes for decades. And beyond our personal experiences with words, we use words to define our laws, our businesses, our spiritual practices, and our societies.
If words can wound us for years, surely they can comfort us too. Words are wildly important. And grief is no exception.
See if this passage from Of Course I’m Here Right Now resonates with you:
“Words have power. And they have some of their greatest power in those moments when someone is grieving.”
Said another way, words are one of the fastest, clearest ways we communicate presence and care. They are one of the main ways we say, I’m here with you. I’m not running from this. You don’t have to be alone with it for these next few minutes.
Words have an impact far beyond the moment they are said. Comforting words after loss can stick with grievers for a lifetime. You can read more about the six roles words play (and how they support grievers for the long-haul) in this article.
You Don’t Need Perfect Words. You Need Honest, Grounded Ones.
A lot of people delay reaching out because they believe they need to say something profound. They’re waiting for the exact sentence or sentiment. The one that sounds wise enough, gentle enough, helpful enough. And in the meantime while they wait for those magical words to pop into their brains, they say nothing at all.
But grieving people don’t need perfection. They need sincerity. They need steadiness. They need to feel that someone is willing to stay in their grief with them without flinching.
In Of Course I’m Here Right Now I write:
“You do not need a formal education or lived experience with grief to support someone who is deep in the throes of loss. You just need a willingness to show up, be present, truly listen, and offer comforting language when it’s appropriate.”
In other words, you do not need to be brilliant. You don’t need to rescue them from their pain. You do not need to be a therapist. You do not need to have gone through the exact same thing.
You just need to be willing to show up and use your words in a way that doesn’t rush, bypass, minimize, or tidy up their grief.
That mindset shift alone can change the entire feel of your interaction with them.
Words Don’t Fix Grief. They Help Carry It.
I want to be really clear here: I’m not saying words are powerful because they make grief disappear.
They don’t and they can’t.
Words don’t have the power to undo death, betrayal, diagnosis, estrangement, or heartbreak. They don’t wrap loss up neatly. They don’t create closure. They don’t return someone to the life they had before.
What words do is make grief more bearable for a moment. They can create connection where there might otherwise be shutdown. They can help someone feel understood instead of alone.
In Of Course I’m Here Right Now I share this:
“The goal of comforting is not to make yourself or a grieving person feel better; it’s to find all the minuscule ways you can be ‘strong together’ as you pick your slow and steady way through the dark.”
That’s the kind of grief support I believe in and that I teach in the book. It’s not polished or performative. And it’s definitely not focused on “fixing” your griever’s experience.
It’s just you using your words with enough care that your grieving friend feels less crazy, alone, and suffering.
Helpful Scripts That Actually Support Someone Grieving
In Of Course I’m Here Right Now, I teach that grievers tell themselves three internal stories:
“I’m crazy.”
“I’m alone.”
“My life will be like this forever.”
In the book, I outline why these stories are true for them and what you can say to offer comfort. Basically, the most helpful phrases are statements of emotional validation, presence, and context—each of them offsetting the pain of those three stories.
These are some of my grieving clients’ favorites, but you can find even more in the book:
“Of course you’re [insert emotion e.g. sad]. You’re grieving!”
“Right now, this is a really tough thing that you’re going through.”
“I haven’t forgotten that you’re grieving.”
“You have lost so much. You will not lose me.”
“Even if I can’t understand completely, I’m here.”
“I can see how hard you’re trying in this season.”
Notice how not one of these phrases tries to make meaning or force a grieving person into a shiny, positive future. They are grounded in the moment and affirm exactly what your grieving friend is dealing with right now. That is what it looks and sounds like to offer true comfort in the face of overwhelming grief.
Closing Thoughts: Your Words Can Change a Griever’s World
When it comes to supporting someone you care about after a loss or heartbreak, your words matter.
You know it and your grieving person knows it.
And in a society that’s committed to making grievers feel weird or abnormal for grieving—and like the world has moved on without them—your words can show that you care, that you have not forgotten about their loss, and that you’ll be with them for the long-haul as a supporter.
That’s a whole lot of payoff for just a few words!
Simply put: words are the best, free grief support tool any of us has to support someone who’s grieving.
A Next Step: Learn the Words That Actually Help
If this article resonates with you, the next step is simple: order my book, Of Course I’m Here Right Now: Three Actually Helpful Things to Say to Someone Grieving. It’s available in hardback, eBook, and audiobook formats.
I wrote it for the moments when someone shares something heartbreaking and you want to respond with more than a cliché. I wrote it for friends, family members, coworkers, helping professionals, and grieving people themselves. I wrote it because so many of us care deeply and still feel like we don’t know what to say.
Inside the book, I’ll help you understand why words matter so much in grief, what makes certain phrases land and others fall flat, and how to use comforting language in a way that helps people feel seen, supported, and less alone.
If you’ve ever wondered what to say to someone grieving, this book is your place to start.
Order Of Course I’m Here Right Now wherever books are sold.
