When You Have to Write a Eulogy: What to Include, and How

When you're asked to give a eulogy, you can sit before the page for a long time, at a loss. Unsure you can do the person justice, or unsure where to even begin. Yet a good eulogy is usually not a well-written one — it's one in which the person is truly visible.

Don't try to write it well

The most common mistake in a eulogy is trying to make the sentences elegant. Flourishes only blur the person.

"They were a wonderful person" could be said of anyone, and so brings no one to mind. But write "the one who always lined up the shoes by the front door," and in that single line the person comes alive. One concrete scene is far stronger than any abstract praise.

Four bones

If you're stuck, follow this order.

1. Relationship. Who you were to them. "I was their neighbor for thirty years."
2. One moment. The single scene that shows them best, told in detail. Less the event than the look on their face, their tone, the mood of it.
3. What they taught you, what you'll miss. What they left with you. What you'll long for most from here on.
4. Goodbye. Keep it short. "Rest easy" or "thank you" is enough.

Best left out

Dwelling on the cause of death or the details of an illness; inside stories only certain family members share, which shut everyone else out; jokes the person themselves would have disliked. Remember this is a place where everyone left behind mourns together.

Before you read

Read it aloud two or three times beforehand. The rhythm on the page differs from the rhythm in the mouth. Knowing in advance where your throat will tighten lets you steady your breath at that line.

It's fine to tremble. Reading it flawlessly isn't the goal. If even one sentence carries how much you cared for the person, the eulogy has already done its work. After the service, keeping the text in a memory record makes it something to open and read again each anniversary.