What do you actually say to someone who is grieving?

Far less than you think, and specifically rather than generally — the most common failure is not saying the wrong thing but saying nothing at all, out of fear of getting it wrong.

What generally works:

"I'm so sorry." Simple, honest, and sufficient. It does not need improving.

Say the person's name, and talk about them. Bereaved people very frequently report that the hardest part is others avoiding the subject, as though the person never existed. You will not remind them — they have not forgotten.

Share a specific memory. "I keep thinking about the time she…" is one of the most valued things you can offer, because it gives them something they did not have.

Acknowledge you don't know what to say. Honest, and far better than silence.

Offer something concrete. "I'm bringing dinner Thursday, leave the porch light on" rather than "let me know if you need anything" — which puts the work of asking onto someone with no capacity for it.

Keep showing up. Support collapses after the first few weeks, exactly when the structure of the funeral ends and the reality begins. A message at three months or on an anniversary carries disproportionate weight.

What tends to land badly, even when kindly meant:

Silver linings — "at least it was quick", "at least they had a long life", "they're not in pain now". Any sentence beginning "at least" minimises.

Explanatory frameworks — everything happens for a reason, it was their time, God needed them — which impose meaning the person may not share.

Comparing griefs, including your own, which shifts the focus.

Timelines — "you should be feeling better by now". Grief is not linear and has no schedule.

Advice, unless asked.

Practical points: grief resurfaces at anniversaries, birthdays and holidays; secondary losses — income, home, role, social circle — compound it; and disenfranchised grief, for a pet, an ex-partner, a pregnancy loss or an estranged relative, is frequently unacknowledged and no less real.