I can't remember the exact moment I became an atheist. There was no epiphany moment. I simply moved away from religion gradually until the binds fell apart completely (those binds being agnosticism, which got tossed once I realized I was simply prolonging the inevitable). But since I became an atheist, I wouldn't say it made any drastic changes in my life – until my best friend called me one day to tell me her mother passed away.

Although we live in different parts of the country (me in New York, she in Oklahoma), we still call each other weekly. But on that particular day the usual familiarity of speaking over the phone was eclipsed by the suddenness of tragedy. I couldn't give a sympathetic hug or offer a shoulder to cry on. All I could offer were my condolences ... which were what exactly?

"I'm sorry for your loss" felt too impersonal. That's what you say to acquaintances, not best friends. "I'm here for you", I told her, which still didn't feel like enough.

I felt like I should have been saying the usual things: "God is with her now", "She's now in heaven" or "You're in my prayers". These phrases sound better because these are the phrases we're used to saying. "She's in a better place" provides a sense of hope and optimism. "You're in my prayers" shows caring and understanding. But that day, as I stood there on the phone struggling to think of the right things to say, I realized I couldn't say those phrases anymore. I couldn't tell her I was praying for her because I wasn't. I couldn't tell her I thought her mother was in "a better place" because to me that place was a hollow grave.

I started to realize that the life of an atheist was a tad bleak. The more I spoke, the darker the conversation became. As I drawled on about how "there was nothing you could have done" and "it is what it is", I started to feel like a black hole. When did atheism transform me into Daria?

But even if I were still a Christian and had the privilege to pepper my condolences with hopeful phrases of heaven and angels, those phrases might sound better, and sure they provide immediate reassurance (which is what they're designed to do), but the phrases themselves are empty. When people say they're praying for you, how often are they really? But saying "I'm praying for you" sounds nice, regardless if there's any truth to it or not. We're conditioned to say these phrases whenever we're confronted with a tragedy, but we put little thought or effort into why we say them.

Last year Kim Kardashian was criticized for tweeting that she was "praying for everyone in Israel" in response to the Israel-Hamas conflict. The critics lashed out, accusing the Kardashian of supporting Israel in the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Kim later added a new tweet saying that she was "praying for everyone in Palestine and across the world!" But amidst the mud-slinging, no one thought to realize how empty a phrase "I'm praying for ______" is, how little weight it has in being anything of significance. It's merely a crutch, a thing we say to show that a) we're aware of a tragedy, and b) we're sorry for whoever died in said tragedy. The amount of people who actually make it to step 2 (physically praying) is a mystery.

To some readers, all of this might sound irrelevant. Religiously-charged phrases serve a single purpose: to provide comfort, reassurance. They help people make sense of tragedies they don't understand. They make people feel good. They provide a sense of hope when people feel like they have none. So what hope do I have as an atheist? Am I doomed to go through life telling friends and family that, no, your grandma is dead for good. There has to be a better way.

During my second phone call to my best friend, I decided I would let her do the majority of the talking. After all, this wasn't about me, it was about my friend, and I realized the best thing I could do for her was to simply be there for her and be a supportive listener. I told her she could call me any time she wanted, even if it was 4am, even if she just wanted to bawl in my ear. Even though I wasn't armed with an arsenal of hopeful and optimistic phrases to make her feel better with, I realized that simply being a caring and understanding friend was more important. And isn't that what really matters?