My daughter Hannah’s partner of five years, Nate, died this past May. He went to sleep feeling not quite right, and he didn’t wake up the next morning. Nothing has been the same since.

To be clear, Hannah didn’t wake up next to him. That week, she was visiting us in New Hampshire. The night before, she’d received a phone call from their landlord, who’d been trying all day to reach Nate about an issue with the apartment and wanted to see if Hannah could get in contact with him. She sent a text and called, but he didn’t answer. She was playing a board game with my husband and, getting no response, was becoming more and more anxious as the night went on. Nate was a typical thirty-year-old – his phone always in his hand or at least nearby – so it was odd.

The next morning, Hannah still hadn’t heard from Nate, so she called his mother in Virginia. When his mother couldn’t reach him, she called the police and requested a wellness check.

I was working from home that day. It was around two in the afternoon, and I was on a call at my desk when I heard an unearthly scream on the back deck. I jumped up, said something hurriedly to the people on the call, and ran out. My husband was speaking on my daughter’s phone while she sat in a chair with a glazed look on her face, saying, “No. No. It can’t be.” No one said the words to me, but I knew by looking at her what had happened.

The next hours, days, and weeks are a blur, with moments of distinct memories woven throughout. Sitting on the grass behind the house all that first afternoon just to touch something real, while my husband put snacks and water in front of us. My son and I driving into Boston at five the next morning to rescue their cat from the apartment, which still bore signs of Nate’s death and the police visit. My son and I walking on the beach with Hannah later that day, encircling her in our arms each time she’d start to cry. Hannah and her cousin planting tomato seedlings in our garden between crying jags. A flight to North Carolina and a Southern Baptist graveside funeral at his family’s plot, with a preacher who didn’t know Nate, and the awful plane ride home, my daughter sobbing at leaving him in the ground in a place he never wanted to be.

Some people responded right away. Hannah stayed with us, and her aunt, uncle, and cousins came for meals, as did our rabbi and his wife. One of my stepdaughters, who lives nearby, visited with a casserole. A friend from our synagogue stopped by, and the synagogue president wrote a personal note. One of my husband’s siblings sent a card, and a colleague of mine sent flowers. I’m grateful for everything they did.

But many people did not reach out. The lack of a local ceremony may have contributed to the confusion about how to respond. People I called expressed sympathy on the phone but then did not follow up. A few of my daughter’s friends only texted her. And some people did nothing. The most startling lack of response came at a gathering of my husband’s family about a month after Nate’s death. No one said a single word about him to Hannah. She came to me in tears, saying she felt as if she were on a desert island in the middle of the party, with no one mentioning this event that had devastated her. The lack of response was so prevalent that I couldn’t stay angry at individuals. I had to figure out what makes it so hard for people to reach out at a time like this.

I started at the other end – what influenced the people who did reach out? Some were following religious traditions. We are Jewish and belong to a Reform synagogue. My brother- and sister-in-law, the rabbi and his wife, and my friend from the congregation are all familiar with the custom of sitting shiva, which involves reaching out, visiting, and bringing food. The official seven-day period of shiva is “intended to see mourners through the first days of intense grief and disorientation,” writes Rabbi Ana Bonnheim, and is, in fact, first described in Genesis 50:10, where Joseph “observed a mourning period of seven days for his father.” Consoling mourners is considered obligatory, Bonnheim says: “We are commanded to bring comfort to loved ones with our presence.”

The best advice I can offer is to say what you feel. Even if what you feel is that you don’t know what to say, say that.

I asked friends of other faiths about their traditions surrounding reaching out to those grieving a loss. Poet Alfred Nicol described the Catholic institutional practices of holding a wake, funeral mass, and burial ceremony, plus his community’s informal traditions. “You didn’t have to go grocery shopping for a month after the death of a family member,” Nicol recalled of the tight-knit French Canadian neighborhood of his childhood. “Friends and relatives were always bringing food over or coming by to prepare meals.” A Mormon friend described the luncheon organized by the church’s relief society after a burial, as well as the bishop’s practice of checking in on the family every few weeks. However, both noted that the attention was mainly focused on the viewing, funeral, and burial, with only informal traditions for the following days.

Supportive communities and traditions need not be religious. At my last workplace, we would send flowers to team members for a death in the family, and attend wakes and viewings for family members of colleagues with whom we were close. Social clubs, civic organizations, and other groups may have practices at times like these. My friend who belongs to a book club and whose husband trains intensively with a group of Ironman competitors described how people from both groups brought food and ran errands when her mother died.

When I was a kid, it seemed that everyone had an etiquette book by “Emily Post” or “Miss Manners.” You can still find good advice about sending condolences online, but there no longer appear to be any widely accepted rules of etiquette for reaching out to those who are in mourning.

What I found is that when people are faced with a situation like this without a tradition or ritual to fall back on, it can feel overwhelming. We tell ourselves that the phrases we’ve heard seem empty or trite – how could those help? We are too far away to really be of any assistance. We are afraid of bringing up the deceased, afraid we’ll remind the person of their loss. We think, “Nothing I can say will fix this.” But as author Steve Almond says, “The truth is – to be blunt – there is nothing you can say that will undo that kind of hurt. But that’s also not your job. Your job is just to offer a little support to someone who is suffering. Period.”

So, what should we do? The best advice I can offer is to say what you feel. Even if what you feel is that you don’t know what to say, say that. As Emily Post writes “Grace of expression counts for nothing; sincerity alone is of value.” It might be something you’ve heard before – “I’m thinking about you,” “I was so sad to hear of his death” – but you can say it anyway; it gives you a way to start the conversation. Alfred Nicol says, “Rituals are essential because there is no other way to handle it.” If you have a specific memory of the deceased, share it. If you can, offer concrete help with a meal or an errand. If you are too far away to visit, you can reach out by phone or write a note. Sending an initial email or text may be okay, but follow up with a phone call. My daughter, definitely part of the texting generation, felt even lonelier receiving texts that said, “Call me anytime.” She didn’t have the energy or will to call; she needed her friends to call her.

“Just show up,” a friend who suffered a similar grief told me. “That’s the most important thing, to just be there, in the storm, letting me know I’m not alone.” I recall one evening spent with Hannah and one of her friends. We ate takeout and just sat together talking about everything and nothing: Octavia Butler, hiking, Bridgerton, the fantasy romance series Court of Thorns and Roses, board games. Every once in a while my daughter would start to cry, and her friend would come around the table so we were on either side of her, holding her as she wept. Her friend didn’t say anything specific, but she was there, and that was everything.

In October, five months after Nate died, Hannah and a friend of his arranged an afternoon at a New York bar they used to frequent, so people who weren’t able to attend the funeral could gather. It was good to see the room full of friends from different parts of his life, getting to know each other and recounting memories. This is how it should be – people coming together to hug, to talk, to share their grief. These days, when people move around and friends no longer live in one place, it’s hard to make this happen, so it’s even more important to reach out however you can.

Having watched my daughter suffer through this grief and seen how the silence of others compounded her feelings of isolation, I have made a promise to myself. Next time I learn of a friend or family member mourning the loss of a loved one, I will show up for them. Visit, call, write – I will do whatever I can, but I will say something. It might sound stupid, but I’ll say it anyway.