How to write a eulogy

You have a few days and you cannot think. This is a method rather than inspiration, because inspiration is not available this week.

Start with a list, not a draft

Do not open a document and try to write. Open a note and write down every concrete thing you can remember: phrases they used, what their kitchen smelled like, the argument they always had, what they did that embarrassed you, the thing they were proud of and never said.

Twenty items. Do not filter. This takes an hour and it is most of the work.

Pick three

Now choose two or three that a room of people would recognize, or that would surprise them. Three stories is a eulogy. A life summarized from birth to death is a biography, and it is the version that puts a room to sleep.

The test for each one: can you tell it in ninety seconds and does it show something about who they were rather than what they achieved.

Build it in four parts

Who you are. One sentence. Half the room does not know.

For those who don't know me, I'm Anna, Margaret's youngest.

The stories. Two or three, in whatever order feels right. Concrete details only: names, places, what was said. "She was generous" is not a story. "She gave away the coat she was wearing, in November, and told us she'd been too warm anyway" is.

What they gave you. One short passage. This is the only place where you are allowed to be direct about feeling, and it works because everything before it has earned it.

How you end. A short line, and stop. Do not trail off into thanking everybody — that belongs to whoever is running the service.

How long

Three to five minutes. That is 400 to 700 words read aloud, which is much shorter than it looks on a page.

Read it out loud with a timer before the day. Everybody overruns, and the page count is not a reliable guide because you will slow down.

Getting through it on the day

• Print it, large. Double-spaced, 16 point or bigger. Your hands will shake and a phone screen will dim.
• Mark your breaths. A slash where you want to pause. It is a script, not an essay.
• Bring water, and put it where you can reach it.
• Have a second person. Give a copy to someone in the front row who has agreed to stand up and finish if you cannot. Knowing that is there is often what lets you get through it yourself.
• If you cry, stop and breathe. Nobody is judging the delivery. Silence in that room is fine.

Afterwards, keep it

The eulogy is heard once, by the people who happened to be there, and then it lives in a drafts folder until the phone is replaced.

It is usually the most complete thing anyone ever writes about that person. Put it somewhere the whole family can read it later — the grandchildren who were too small to follow it will want it in twenty years.