Yet it is still the power of words that extends

There are certain people with death following them like a shadow that can't be shaken off.  

It's a horrible thing to say.  
I have a friend, not so a close one, a friend I haven't seen him for so long, nor directly contacted him recently, apart from a few occasions when expressing my condolences every time someone close to him dies.  

The shadow is not visible.  But you can feel it following them like shadow. 
I am truly sorry for what is happening to my friend.  
Yet I just can't think what could be done to lift such shadow for him.  

There's also part of me deep inside, thinking lucky for myself that no cloud is above my head casting such shadow.  

I feel so sorry the pain he has to go through repeatedly. 
If there is any word adequate to console and ease his pain I will convey that. 
At times like this I feel the extent of what words can do. 
Especially more so now that the whole world is locked down, keeping everyone apart from each other, confined in each small broken worlds and dividing, no physical contact, even simply hearing him out will be given to him.  

The loss of sharing the air, the atmosphere held together have come to be the biggest damage caused by the current global pandemic, it turns out.  

He lost his wife a while ago and just recently we were informed his sibling passed away just recently.  

Yet, in the midst of all obstacles, what still lightens such shadow following him, is still the power of words and I see that especially more so today when we're kept apart, unable to see each other like we used.  

So I just put out words quietly on his SNS account expressing my condolences, how I sorry I am. 
I tell him we are all thinking of him and even if for a small amount, if he finds that someone from the Far East, wishing him well at his most difficult time, might just lift the shadow cast and burden he bears even for a small bit.