It’s probably one of the most frequent expressions uttered at a funeral. “If there’s anything I can do…” It is intended to offer some degree of comfort and support to someone who has lost a loved one to death. However well-intentioned it is, it is usually a futile effort. Chances are that the person this is offered to is lost in a sea of emotions and in no position to even consider or even appreciate such an offer.

It is a time when we offer our love in a sincere effort to fill the void of the love lost. It is a time when we struggle to find some way to ease the burden of someone’s grief. In that moment of crisis, we fumble into our emotional toolkit and apply the very logic that we have so often used to deny or doubt faith. Only now, ironically, we find ourselves using that logic to offer messages of hope and support. At a time when it seems that logic has no value, we instinctively fall back on logical expressions of comfort – “She’s in a better place now” – “At last he’s no longer in pain” – “She’s reunited with her husband now.”

We probably don’t even realize that we are submitting messages of faith.

If we reflect on it, we might realize that grief is the direct result of lost love, and faith is the only sure way to  heal the wounds of loss. The only way to avoid any possibility of experiencing grief is to reject or avoid love. When we consider how important love is to our life we begin to accept that such an attitude is unrealistic. Somehow, we instinctively understand that grief and love are two sides of the same coin.

In other words, some degree of grief is inevitable. It is one of the prices we pay for the privilege of living a human life. It is the price we eventually pay for having the experience of love. The extent of our grief is in direct proportion to the degree of love for the deceased individual. Certainly, the death of a parent, child, or spouse will result in a more intense and prolonged period of grief than a close friend, but it is still based on affection and closeness.

It is a frustrating and stressful moment when we want to shoulder some of the burden, yet we are essentially handicapped. There is little we can do, despite our sincere offer.

All we can do is offer our love as a fractional substitute for the love lost and reinforce or promote faith as a means of reassuring those who mourn that their loved one has merely returned to the source of all existence where they wait to be reunited.

Perhaps it is in that moment that we have the chance to recognize that love is the most powerful element in our existence, and sharing that love, sharing that faith, is the greatest gift we can offer to those who mourn.