Condolence messages

 To send or not to send? That is the dilemma. Well, yes, i am talking of the condolence messages. The first instinctive reaction is to send the condolence message. The death of a friend, a colleague, a distant relative is indeed a very sad event. 

Death has a tragic finality to it. The feel that you would never ever see, meet, talk to the person churns your stomach, hurts your heart, wounds your soul deeply. The near and dear ones of the deceased would feel this eternal loss very much and intimately. You want to share with them that lonesome feel. You want to support them. Hence the condolence message.

There is another subtle feel to a condolence message. You feel that if you share your sense of loss to someone very close to the deceased, could be, the sibling or the partner, the immediate family, then may be,  your grief, your sense of loss would somehow reach the deceased. The message is thus a way to connect with the dead and convey to her/him your soulful sense of loss and  your grief over the tragic event.

You would then say, where is the dilemma? Well, you feel delicate about it because the near and dear ones are in mourning, in deep shock. You feel that your words of solace may pry open that wound. In other words, constant condolence messages may not give the immediate family, the near and dear ones a chance to grieve by themselves, in the private space, and slowly start to come to terms with the inevitable.

If at all you send such a message, it should be sensitive, brief and respectful of their privacy, and deep grief. Well, actually, one should never ever have to write any such message! How can we, though, avoid the inevitable! As John Donne put it, "never ask for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee!"

Pratima@ "The words of condolence try your grief to share/They assure that for the dead and her near and dear ones you care!"