When grief overwhelms the daily landscape of your life, your innate sense of trust is tested as well-meaning friends or family offer clichés and platitudes to assuage the pain of your loss. Unless another has experienced personal loss, declarations such as “I understand,” “I know how you feel,” or “I know exactly how you feel” resound as empty words that likely hurt more than help. A component of trust is authenticity. Words that overlay grief’s pain belie the intimacy of trust. In grief you trust the outreach of others, whatever words are used.