The Right Words for the Expression of Sympathy: Speech to Wreath Choice

Finding the right words is very difficult, especially in a bereavement. No matter whether it is a funeral card, the inscription of a wreath ribbon or a funeral speech. The words should be chosen tactfully and carefully to pay the deceased the necessary honor. For those who find the choice of words difficult, we offer support and give some examples and tips for the appropriate words as a funeral service.

Pay Attention to the Level of Relationship to the Deceased

In order to find the right words and gestures in the case of bereavement, one should first of all be clear about the relationship one had with the deceased. It may well make a difference whether the basis of the expression of mourning was a rather business or clearly personal relationship. For example, surviving relatives do not expect profound thoughts when expressing sympathy if the deceased and the mourner had a purely business relationship. In this case, the standardized phrases (“With great dismay…”, “Deeply saddened I was…” etc.) may be used in the card text without any problems.

More demanding and also accompanied by the corresponding expectations of the relatives are condolences based on a previously very personal relationship with the deceased. For both sides – the immediate family of the deceased and the conductors – memories of shared experiences play a major role and influence the content and form of what is said.

But it can also be a great help for the conductor to find the right words and to fall back on the personal relationship with the deceased. The beginning of the conversation with the bereaved, even a speech or written condolences can help us to remember these personal encounters. Often, the right words and thoughts arise from these encounters, even without “outside” help.

The Introduction – Mourning and Salutation

And yet: It is often the moment of mourning that is the hardest. A funeral oration can be started well with a tactful funeral proclamation, condolence or condolences. Sayings of this kind deal with the topic of mourning, death, parting or loss. They are always empathetic and encourage reflection and contemplation.

For the entrance into a mourning procession it is however quite alright to begin with an important sentence or thought of the deceased, which remained in good memory to the conducting person. In this way, a personal bridge is immediately built between the deceased, the immediate bereaved and the speaker.

In the context of the later following personal words of condolence reference can be made to this saying. Afterwards follows the address of the mourning family. If there is a personal relationship to them, they should be adressed directly with their first name. More details: inheritance guide. Some formulations, which are well suitable as salutation, are for example love mourning family, love mourners, love family Mayer, …

The Words of Condolence – Personal Stories and Words of Condolence

After the salutation, the words of condolence should follow directly. Here the topic death can be adressed directly, but also personal memories of the deceased can be mentioned. Together experienced moments, small stories or anecdotes about the life of the deceased or simply the deep expression of grief. It is important to show the mourning family that the loss was also very painful for you, but that the memories, love and experiences are much stronger than death. Make sure to remain tactful and choose your formulations wisely. It helps to make some notes about the content of the speech before you start.

Stay True to Yourself

Many people are tempted to pretend to be sadder, more pious, more affected by expressions of sympathy than they really are. The reason for this attitude is often that the person conducting the conduction believes that a certain mourning attitude is expected of him. But the opposite is the case: whoever has not presented himself as a particularly spiritual person in his previous relationship with the deceased and the bereaved should not suddenly appear “more papal than the pope” in his words of condolence.

The basic rule is: Even in the event of a bereavement and with condolences, remain authentic. The person conducting the condolence should remain true to himself and his kind. Thus, a person who is fundamentally fun-loving and who has always met the deceased with humor and lightness may also take this attitude when expressing his or her condolences. Provided that one is really serious about this lightness. As a rule, people can sense very well whether their counterpart is really serious – even in the case of bereavement.

Grave and Wreath Ribbon – the Right Choice of Words

In the event of a bereavement, it is common for close family members, relatives and good friends to buy a wreath in memory of the deceased. For this purpose it is not only necessary to choose the flowers and the optical picture, but also to choose an inscription of the wreath bow. It can be both sayings, which come particularly from the heart but also a sensitive last greeting. Examples are words like ‘We will never forget you! – Yours …’ or ‘In silent remembrance’.

Mourning – Ideas and Suggestions for your Speech

So that you are not alone in writing the funeral proclamation, we have put together some ideas and suggestions for your funeral speech to help you find your bearings. Every funeral oration should contain something personal, which is why we recommend supplementing our ideas and suggestions with personal anecdotes or stories.

Beginning the Eulogy

• Dear Family XY,
• Dear Mrs. XY,
• We express our deepest sympathy for the death of your husband.
• I am deeply saddened and express my sincere condolences to you and your family on the death of your dear mother…
• We have prayed, trembled and hoped with you. But now we quietly mourn with you.
• We still cannot believe that your brother has left us forever…
• It hurts me a lot to lose a good friend…
• It is so unspeakably difficult to find suitable and comforting words.
• I would like to express my sincere condolences to you for the heavy loss through the death of your wife…
• It is so painful to lose a loved one so suddenly.
• We share with you the painful loss that you have suffered through the death of …
• We are all very saddened by the tragic loss of your beloved brother. Our sincere condolences as well as much strength for the difficult hours of mourning and farewell.

The Words of Condolence

• We will keep her in best memory and continue her life’s work in her spirit…
• Deeply touched, I would like to express my deepest sympathy to you.
• All who knew her were impressed by her charisma and her helpfulness…
• May the pain of death not overwhelm you and may the memory of our time together give you enough strength for the future.
• He was my best friend, I will never forget him…
• I wish you, supported by your children and grandchildren, to find enough strength to master the further path of life.
• We loved her very much, and her cheerful nature was always an example for us…
• I wish you a lot of strength and mutual love during this time
• Many people will remember her with gratitude and love…
• I hope that your grief will soon become a loving memory.

Sadness Quotes

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

It is a distance that was, that we come from. It is a distance that will be that we go to.

The following quotation is also from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Absolutely true words, which anyone who has ever mourned can understand.

What you have deep in your heart,
one cannot lose by death.

Franz Kafka

You can see the sun slowly setting and yet get a fright when it is suddenly dark.

Ernest Hemingway

Only a few people are really alive and those who are never die. It does not count that they are no longer there. No one you really love is ever dead.

Dalai Lama

Inner happiness is not dependent on material circumstances. It is rooted in our mind

Confucius

All worldly things are only a dream in spring. Think of death as a homecoming.

Theodor Fontane

Still it will be! And as the deep peace
a quiet contraction now went through,
there it may be that isolated
the earth soul flew upwards.

Thomas Mann

The bonds of love are not cut with death.

William Shakespeare

We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep

Proper furnishing – Turning an apartment or house into a favourite place

We have compiled suggestions for you to which you can orient yourself, if you want to redesign a room or an apartment. There are many different possibilities, so that there should be suitable ideas for everyone. Let us inspire you and bring new life into your interior.

The basics of interior design

For a room to be perfectly furnished, you have to plan the design down to the smallest detail. Especially the decoration can give a room the final touch. Nevertheless, we start with the foundation.

Colours influence the atmosphere

Before you can start designing a room, you should consider which colours should be represented in furniture, wall colours and decoration. In order to choose the right colour, it is particularly important to consider which colour you feel comfortable with in the long term. In order not to end up with a colour that is only a short-term favourite or belongs exclusively to a current trend, it also makes sense to look at the effect of colours and wallpapers. Also if it should be several colours, it is important to check whether the colours harmonize in combination with each other. If you find it difficult to form your own opinion, it makes sense to get an app that inspires you with interior pictures or to visit a furniture store to find the right colours for you.

Did you know? Most Germans love the colour blue. For over 40%, blue is their favourite colour.

Floor coverings – What suits which room?

Not only the design of the walls is of great importance, but also the flooring makes a lot of difference. While a wooden floor creates a cozy atmosphere, tiles can change the entire feeling of the room. For this reason, you should consider beforehand what feeling a room should convey in the end and what the room will mainly be used for. If you want to design a whole apartment at once, it makes sense to bring variety into the floor design in order to have both cozy areas and practically usable areas.

Furnish rooms correctly

In an apartment or house, there can be a wide variety of rooms that need to be decorated. Whether it’s the kitchen, the living room or the office, we’ve put together some interior design tips for you.

The kitchen – the place for creativity

The possibilities for designing a kitchen are endless. It is particularly important that a kitchen not only looks good, but also has good quality. Unlike electrical appliances, the countertop in a kitchen should ideally have a service life of at least 20 years. Before buying a kitchen, you should consider which kitchen – shape will make the best use of the space. There should be sufficient storage space and a sufficiently large work surface must be available. Only when these important points are met, you should decide which style and colors you like.

Living room – The place to relax

When you walk into the living room of someone you know, you recognize a bit of their personality. Every living room looks different and shows you how a person feels most comfortable. However, not everyone has the talent to create an ideal living room off the cuff and it makes sense to learn a few tricks beforehand. To make a living room cozy, it makes sense to decorate it accordingly. Small tea glasses with tea lights, fairy lights, candlesticks, a faux fur on the sofa, a cuddly blanket, a soft carpet or even a crackling fireplace bring the right atmosphere in the living room. It is by no means only the decoration that causes the feel-good feeling, because the wall color is also enormously important. Since one spends a lot of time in the living room and also spends time there with visitors, for example, it makes sense to choose calm colour schemes. The colors blue and a warm yellow tone are therefore not unpopular for the design of the walls in a living room.

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The office – the place to work

A full-time employee works an average of 1,696 hours per year. For this reason, the design of an office, or of a workplace in general, is as important as that of a living room in which one spends time every day. It is important that a feel-good atmosphere is created and also that creativity is stimulated. In an office, it is important that everything is not just filled with filing cabinets, telephones and screens, but care should be taken that pictures hang on the walls or that the walls are colourful and that there are plants or flowers on the tables. If the employee is given the opportunity to personalize his or her desk with, for example, a private photo of the family, this design will also have a positive effect on work behavior.

Your apartment – Varied & Cosy

Moving into your own home for the first time, or moving house and looking forward to redesigning your home? We have tips for you, how you can achieve a real sense of achievement this time in the design of your apartment. After all, the atmosphere in an apartment is usually influenced by little things.

Decoration

You can have your apartment or your house ideally furnished, but if the decoration is missing, the whole thing looks nowhere near as cozy and homely as it could. Little things like candles, small plants, flowers and pictures on the walls make a lot of difference. Through the decoration comes variety in the design of the room and if the decoration is color-coordinated, the whole thing looks harmonious and cozy.

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Different light sources

Most rooms have one large light hanging in the middle of a room. However, if you want to achieve a different feeling of space, it makes sense to omit the large light and instead place several smaller light sources in different places. If you take care to choose lamps that give off a warm light, this will create a cosy and calm atmosphere. A particularly beautiful light source is also the light chain. Through them you achieve not only a cozy atmosphere, but also a fairy-tale atmosphere. There are various different ways of incorporating fairy lights into the decoration. It makes sense to get inspiration for the design from an idea app, such as “Pinterest”.

The wardrobe

When moving into a new home and purchasing your household items, the wardrobe is often one of the things that is purchased last. This happens because most people would not consider the wardrobe as the most important house item. The wardrobe is immensely underestimated here. A coat rack at the entrance of the apartment or house ensures that the first thing that you do in the home is to take off your jacket. By the fact that you do not wear a jacket and this also nowhere disturbing lying around, you immediately feel much more comfortable and go with a good feeling in your apartment.

Scented candles

Apart from the fact that you should air your home frequently to feel comfortable, a pleasant smell is also important. Find a scented candle that suits your taste and spread several of them around your house or apartment. The smell should not be too intense so that you do not get a headache. After a while, it is also a good idea to change the scented candle to a different scent. If scented candles are too intense for you, there are also so-called scented sticks. Depending on the number of scented sticks in the liquid, you can determine the intensity of the smell yourself.

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Stowable items

This tip should be especially interesting for people with a smaller apartment. Stowable items are worth their weight in gold in a smaller apartment. Just bulky items usually take up all the space. A table with pull-out function or a pull-out bed allow you to use the space at times other than sleeping or eating. When a table is folded, or a bed is folded, the room immediately looks tidier and cleaner. Also, if you have more space available, a small room for storing cleaning equipment and cleaning supplies is useful. When these things are stowed away, you immediately feel much more comfortable and free.

Options for the design of walls

There are many different ways to design walls exciting. There is not only wallpaper and paint, but also wall decoration, which makes it possible to bring variety into the wall design. Wall decoration includes things like different picture frames, small shelves and many other things. Also for the design of walls it is useful to acquire ideas on the Internet, or just look around in a furniture or decoration – store.

Mirror

A mirror also proves to be a beautiful wall decoration. If a mirror has a special frame and hangs on a plain wall, it can become a real eye-catcher. Whether in gold or silver, who wants to make his walls more exciting and likes mirrors, should try this tip.

Tapestry

When you think of a tapestry, you probably think that such a thing was only used in earlier times for interior design. However, this is not the case. Even today, you can use a tapestry to add variety and color to a room. Let yourself be inspired and don’t be afraid to try something new.

Read also:

• Concepts for home furnishings
• Bedroom: How to create your oasis of well-being

Reject inheritance – makes sense depending on the situation

The inheritance does not always hold only good things in store for the descendants. Even if many dream of riches and expensive jewellery, debts or dilapidated real estate can also be part of the estate. In such cases, it is possible to disclaim the inheritance within a certain period of time and in accordance with certain criteria. What happens to the inheritance afterwards and how you can best proceed in such a case is now explained by the experts at Lukinski.

The form and deadline – you must pay attention to this

To disclaim the inheritance requires some rules. Simply notifying the family or simply having no reaction to the inheritance is not enough. The form is very crucial. The heir must make a disclaimer to the probate court either in the form of a transcript or in a publicly notarized form. However, a simple letter is not sufficient. A personal appearance before the probate court is also possible. There, the heir explains his or her request and a judicial officer records it in writing. The local court in whose district the deceased had his or her last residence is responsible. If the deceased is German, but had his residence abroad, the Berlin-Schöneberg Local Court is responsible. In Baden-Württemberg there is a special regulation. In this federal state, the state notary’s office is your contact.

However, not only the form is very decisive for the success of the disclaimer, but also the content and the deadline of the declaration. This must have clearly listed why the inheritance does not want to be accepted. The reasons should be clearly listed. These may include, for example, that the estate consists mainly of debts. The declaration is subject to a so-called six-week period. If the heir does not wish to accept the inheritance, the relevant declaration must be submitted to the competent probate court within six weeks, otherwise the inheritance is deemed to have been accepted. The cut-off date is assumed to be the day on which you learned of the inheritance, which usually coincides with the day of death. The deadline is only extended in certain exceptional cases. For example, if the deceased or the heir himself is abroad at the time of death, the six-week deadline can be postponed.

Generally speaking, the probate court does not have a duty to bring. The heirs are only notified of the inheritance if there is a will or if they succeed to the inheritance because, for example, someone else has already disclaimed the inheritance. In all other cases, the heirs are assumed to know whether or not they inherit anything from a deceased family member.

• The correct form is decisive in order to make the disclaimer of the inheritance legally effective.
• The content of the declaration must contain precise reasons for the renunciation of the inheritance
• Heirs are not informed of their role as heirs by the probate court unless there is an estate, or they succeed to the estate as heirs

Inheritance: Accept or reject? – Tips from a lawyer

Rejecting an inheritance – When does it make sense?

No heir is obliged to accept the inheritance. This is mainly for the protection of the heir, because he or she receives not only the assets but also the debts of the deceased, for which he or she is liable with his or her own private assets. Before an inheritance is therefore started or struck, each heir should first of all get a precise overview of the assets and debts of the deceased. These include bank balances, securities, valuables, land and real estate, but also funeral costs, loans, maintenance arrears or compulsory portion claims. The costs of an estate administration or a will opening can likewise be added. If this examination shows that there is more debit than credit, it makes sense to disclaim the inheritance. If real estate in need of renovation is part of the estate, a detailed examination is also necessary. If the inheritance is accepted, a lot of money must be invested in the renovation work, which can be very expensive depending on the case. Therefore, you should carefully consider whether you want to accept the inheritance in such a case or not.

• An over-indebted inheritance can lead to the financial ruin of the heir
• Renovable real estate can be part of the inheritance and lower the value of it

The costs – disclaiming inheritance in the event of overindebtedness

If the inheritance is overindebted, the costs are very low. The fees for disclaiming the inheritance are a flat rate of 30 euros at the probate court. If an inheritance that is not overindebted is rejected, the costs are incurred in accordance with the Court and Notary Costs Act. The higher the value of the estate, the more expensive the proceedings will be.

An inheritance can only ever be disclaimed in full. Accepting the assets and disclaiming the debts is therefore not possible. If an inheritance is disclaimed, the heir is no longer entitled to the compulsory portion, which is normally due to each heir according to the law. If the estate is disclaimed by all possible heirs, it becomes the property of the state. The latter uses the assets (if any) to pay off part of the debts. The creditors of the remaining debts are left empty-handed in such a case.

• The cost of eliminating an inheritance in the event of overindebtedness is very low
• An inheritance can only ever be accepted or disclaimed in full.

Udecide in retrospect – is this possible?

Once an inheritance has been accepted or the deadline has passed, there is usually no turning back. However, once again exceptions confirm the rule. In certain cases, it is possible to withdraw from the inheritance after the fact. If, for example, it comes to light after the acceptance of the inheritance that the estate contains a large loan from the deceased, of which you were unaware until then, the acceptance of the inheritance can be contested. However, as a prerequisite, you must have had full knowledge of the assets and debts of the estate. However, if the heir wants to contest the acceptances because the six-week period was not known or it was not clear when it starts, this is also possible with a good lawyer.

In the opposite case, there are also some possibilities. If the inheritance was disclaimed due to over-indebtedness and it subsequently transpires that the estate does not contain as many debts as was assumed at the outset, the disclaimer cannot be contested. If, however, it subsequently transpires that securities or real estate are part of the estate of which you had no knowledge at the time of the disclaimer, a challenge is very much possible. The contestation must be declared in writing to the probate court within six weeks after the error has been recognised and must state the reasons for the contestation.

• Depending on the case, a subsequent disclaimer of the inheritance is possible
• However, the disclaimer of the inheritance can also be challenged retrospectively.

Read more about inheriting without a will!

The most important questions on the subject of disclaiming an inheritance

Many regulations, deadlines and declarations make the disclaimer of an inheritance complicated. So that no questions remain unanswered for you, our experts at Lukinski answer the most important questions on the subject of disclaiming an inheritance.

What does it cost to disclaim an inheritance?

The cost of disclaiming an inheritance in the event of over-indebtedness is a flat rate of 30 euros. If an estate that is not overindebted is disclaimed, the costs are calculated according to the amount of the estate.

What if you disclaim an inheritance?

If an heir disclaims the estate, he or she is no longer entitled to take over the assets and debts of the deceased and is not liable for them with his or her private assets. With a disclaimer, the heir loses all rights and claims he or she has to the estate. This also includes the compulsory portion.

When does the deadline begin to disclaim inheritance?

The six-week period to disclaim the inheritance begins when the heir becomes aware of his or her status as one. In most cases, the period begins with the knowledge of the death of the testator, that is, the date of his death.

What is the intestate succession?

If no will has been left or if it has been found to be invalid, the legal succession applies. This is based on the degree of kinship and the marital property status of the testator. The relatives are divided into three orders for this purpose.

What do I have to do to disclaim an inheritance?

The heir must present himself in person at the probate court of his own residence or the last residence of the deceased, identify himself and disclaim the inheritance. On the spot, the rejection is put on record.

What happens to the debt after death?

In principle, after death, both the assets and the debts pass to the heirs as long as they do not disclaim the inheritance.