It's hard enough finding a card that says 'happy birthday' in quite the right way. Your dad has a sense of humour, but not so much that you could give him a card with a rude T-word splattered across the front.

And when it comes to empathy cards it's a whole different ball game.  

Thankfully Emily McDowell tells it exactly like it is in a unique and brilliant way that is both what you want to say and what the recipients want to hear. 

She's released seven new cards that deal with serious illness, with perfectly accurate scribblings like "Together, we can find a cure for the phrase "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger"."

Emily released her powerful messages as a response to her own illness. She based them on what she wanted to hear, and what she would have wanted to receive when she had lymphoma at 24-years-old.

Her business took off after the success she had with this Valentine's Day card which epitomises the awkwardness of it all. 

This isn't her first batch of genius either. Emily first launched her empathy cards last May with the below gems.

In an interview with Joanne Goddard, she said "“When you are very sick, or someone close to you has died, it’s really lonely.”

"The cancer cards that existed when I had cancer always seemed to be written by someone at Hallmark who got an assignment to write a cancer card. It seems like what someone would THINK would be good for someone with cancer, but actually wasn’t.”

They're the perfect combination of understanding, humour and love.