Or:
"Your flowers were so beautiful! Thank you for them and for your loving message."
Or:
"Thank you for your sweet letter. I know you meant it and I appreciate it."
Many, many such notes can be written in a day. If the list is overlong, or the one who received the flowers and messages is in reality so prostrated that she (or he) is unable to perform the task of writing, then some member of her immediate family can write for her:
"Mother (or father) is too ill to write and asks me to thank you for your beautiful flowers and kind message."
Most people find a sad comfort as well as pain, in the reading and replying to letters and cards, but they should not sit at it too long; it is apt to increase rather than assuage their grief. Therefore, no one expects more than a word—but that word should be seemingly personal.
Obligations Of Presence At Funerals
Upon reading the death notice of a mere acquaintance you may leave your card at the house, if you feel so inclined, or you may merely send your card.
Upon the death of an intimate acquaintance or friend you should go at once to the house, write, "With sympathy" on your card and leave it at the door. Or you should write a letter to the family; in either case, you send flowers addressed to the nearest relative. On the card accompanying the flowers, you write, "With sympathy," "With deepest sympathy," or "With heartfelt sympathy," or "With love and sympathy." If there is a notice in the papers "requesting no flowers be sent," you send them only if you are a very intimate friend.