When Words Fail Short

Yesterday, I found myself reflecting on something I’ve often seen but rarely paused to analyze.

It started with one of those posts on social media—the kind that announces a devastating loss. You know the ones: a colleague, a third-degree connection, maybe even a friend of a friend, sharing that someone close to them has passed away. Sometimes the message is direct; other times, it’s coded—“after a long battle,” or simply “gone too soon.”

And the responses are always the same. “My deepest condolences.” “Thinking of you.” Or, for the LinkedIn crowd, a single support emoji. A flood of well-meaning, universal phrases that, while heartfelt, often feel repetitive.

I get it. What else can you say? What else is there to say?

That very same evening, I saw one of those posts—but this time, it wasn’t a distant connection. It was from a former teammate, someone I worked closely with for years. His wife had passed away after a long battle with cancer. Even though I knew she had been unwell, the finality of it hit me hard.

I stared at the screen, struggling for words. It wasn’t about making my response stand out—grief isn’t a moment to “stand out.” But I didn’t want to default to the same phrases. They felt insufficient. So I wrote what came naturally to me.

In Dutch, we often use the word liefs when ending messages to someone close to us. It translates roughly to “love” or “fondly,” but it carries a different weight. It’s softer, more personal, almost tender. In English, it might feel out of place—imagine signing a condolence message with “love” to someone outside your immediate circle. But in Dutch, liefs bridges that gap. It’s warm, human, and just intimate enough without overstepping.

I addressed him by name and wrote something about the tenderness of his message, the grief it conveyed, and my wish for him to find strength and solace. Then I signed off with liefs. It felt right, a way to offer not just words but a piece of humanity, a reminder that he wasn’t alone.

That evening, after finishing my response, I decided to unwind with some background noise. I flipped on the TV and landed on a documentary—something I usually avoid these days. It was about Zelensky, a profile of his leadership in wartime Ukraine.

It wasn’t the political commentary that grabbed me. It was the footage of Bucha.

The clip showed streets strewn with bodies—men, women, children. People on bicycles, crumpled at the curbs. The silence of those images was deafening. And in that moment, the abstract became personal.

I couldn’t help but think: How can we call ourselves civilized when this is what we do to each other?

These weren’t just bodies. They were neighbors, families. Ukrainians and Russians—people who had once lived under the same roof of the Soviet Union, now tearing each other apart. For what? Power? Control? The manipulations of a handful of people who will never know the cost of the destruction they orchestrate?

It always seems to come back to the few versus the many. Call it the “one percent”—not the wealthiest, but the most ruthless. The ones who incite wars, commit atrocities, and tear apart the very fabric of humanity.

And yet, as individuals, we care so deeply. We ache when one person suffers. But when the numbers grow—ten, a hundred, a thousand—we become numb. We can’t process the scale, so we shut it out.

That paradox haunted me. How can we reconcile the compassion we feel on an individual level with the detachment we experience in the face of mass suffering? Is it self-preservation? A failure of our collective empathy?

And then there’s AI. As we lean more heavily on technology, we face new questions about control and censorship. AI decides what we see, what we can say, and even how we say it. Are we still the humans in the loop, or have we handed over the reins? And if AI is to be our arbiter, how do we ensure it reflects the best of us—our compassion, our humanity—instead of just amplifying our shortcomings?

The footage from Bucha brought all these thoughts crashing together. It forced me to confront the fragility of our so-called civilization and the tension between our individual humanity and collective indifference.

And yet, in that moment, what stayed with me was the simplicity of liefs. A single word that carries warmth, care, and connection. Maybe that’s all we can do—find small, human ways to remind each other that we’re not alone. Because even when words fail, the act of showing up still matters.

So, I’ll keep writing, keep reflecting, and keep wrestling with these questions. Because if we don’t—if we stop trying to make sense of it all—then what’s left?

Liefs,

Mike