is there a way I can find you At work today they were circulating a sympathy card for a woman who recently lost a brother to liver failure. I've talked to this lady a few times and cooked with her at our team-building lesson back in December, so I thought I should sign the card. But I opened it and read what others had written and was completely at a loss as to what to say. What do you say?

Being the super-resourceful internet dork that I am, I quickly Googled "sympathy card sentiments", and stumbled upon the Amazon page for a book that a woman wrote for precisely this purpose. It's called My Deepest Sympathies and with Amazon's handy "search inside" feature, I was able to read the first few pages and it helped a lot. It was terribly useful to have a resource like this, because she made some good points that I wouldn't necessarily have thought of.

Most of us cringe at the thought of mentioning "death" or "died" in a note. The words remind us of what we don't want to be reminded of, and we fear they will upset the bereaved. Most people turn to euphemisms like "passed away" or "the loss of your father". But there's no getting away from it; the person died. The mourner is upset. I consciously use the word "death" in my own notes because it's direct and appropriate.

Another point she makes is to mention the deceased. I had intended to write something like "my thoughts are with you", but I noticed that just about everybody else had said precisely that. So I went with, "I'm sorry to hear about your brother", and I hope that covers it. Tricky business, man.  | ¶ 9:48 p.m.