You found out by text, or from a forwarded email at work. Someone's father died Sunday. You are not close enough to drive over and sit in the kitchen, and you are too close to let it pass. You have read the same three sentences of the message four times. Flowers are the default and you are not sure they are the right default. You want to do something before Thursday, when the week takes the impulse away from you, and you do not want to send anything that makes this person write you back.
What is appropriate, and what is not
Food is appropriate and has always been appropriate. The practical problem in a house after a death is that people keep arriving and there is nothing to offer them, so the person grieving ends up hosting their own worst week. Something dry on the counter fixes that. It needs no plate, no reheating, no dish returned to anyone. A casserole makes work: it occupies freezer space someone has to think about, and the dish has to go home eventually.
Do not send anything that forces a same-day decision. Fruit arrangements rot in four days and nobody in that house is thinking about fruit. Live plants ask to be watered by someone who is not sleeping. Avoid a box that says the word gift on the outside, because it gets opened on a porch in front of neighbors.
Time it wrong on purpose. The week of the funeral the house is full and the counter is covered. Week three is when the calls stop and the person is alone in the house on a Tuesday afternoon. Arriving then does more, and almost nobody does it.
Do not write anything that asks a question. Do not offer help in a form that makes them assign you a task. Sign your full name — grief scrambles recall, and half the cards in that pile are signed with a first name they cannot place.
What to send
If you'd rather bake it: plain almond cantucci, no chocolate, no citrus. They keep three weeks in a sealed tin and need no plate. Write the date you baked them on the lid, so the household knows it is safe to leave out. The recipe is at /ricette/. For anyone within driving distance, a homemade tin left on the step beats a shipped one, because there is no packing slip in it with your name misspelled.
What to write
- I heard about your father. I'm so sorry. I'm not going to ask you to write back.
- There is nothing useful to say. I'm thinking about you and about your mom this week.
- I keep thinking about the summer he drove us out to the coast. I'm sorry, Dana.
- I'm going to call you on the 14th, and if you don't want to pick up, don't pick up.
- Sending something for the counter. Feed it to whoever shows up. — Marcus Hall
12 more lines for this occasion →
Timing
The first flowers land within 72 hours and the counter is full by day four. Aim for day 10 to day 21 instead. If you want to send twice, send a card the first week and food the third — the second one gets remembered, because it arrives after everyone else has gone quiet. Do not schedule delivery for the day of the service; nobody is home, and a box on the step during a funeral is the wrong thing to come back to. Address it to the surviving spouse or the eldest child by name, not to “the family of.” Most of the bakeries at /regali/ bake to order and ship Monday through Wednesday so nothing sits in a depot over a weekend, which means a date you want hit needs about five business days of lead. If the household is sitting shiva or receiving visitors on set days, ask a mutual friend which days those are before you pick a date.
This page names no brand and earns nothing from what you decide. The bakeries that ship are listed alphabetically by state; our method is here, including what we would have to disclose if that ever changed.