WHEN SOMEONE CLOSE TO YOU DIES: The most sincere and simplest thing to say, when you don't know the berieved personally, I learned by the age of five. "I am sorry." That is all that is needed, all that is understood. Three words.::: RE: Letter of sympathy #1, below: There are 168 hrs in a week. 63 hours, based on 9 hrs +/- spent sleeping. 7 hrs for meals. Leaving 98 hrs a week for everyone and everything else. That is a heck of a lot of time in one person's weekly life.::: "I know what you mean." 1) Assuming. 2)Presumping. 3)Devaluing. 4)Negating. We all laugh in the same way, no two people can experience their own pain in the same way? It becomes a giant pissing match ensues. "If it is any comfort...." Now this is where we get into big trouble. It is a common non-statement of a false kind of empty 'sympathy' by the socially inept. "Everybody has their cross to bear." The clunker. Except for Jews, Athiests et al who don't bear "crosses"? Falling right into the political social hot tub. Plop! But "have a happy (fill in the blanks). "I'm sorry." Full stop.