How to write a eulogy: a simple plan, with examples

You have been asked to give the eulogy, and you have a few days, a lot of feelings and a blank page. This guide is here to make the page less blank. You do not need to be a good speaker. You need to tell the truth about someone you loved, in a way the people in the room will recognise.

What a eulogy is

A eulogy is a short speech about the person who has passed on: who they were, what they did, and what they meant to the people around them. It is different from the life history (sometimes called the obituary) printed in the funeral programme, which lists the facts: born, schooled, married, worked, survived by. The eulogy is the part that sounds like them.

How long it should be

Aim for five to seven minutes when read aloud at a calm pace. That is about 700 to 900 words. If the family has asked several people to speak, keep yours nearer three minutes. Shorter and true is always better than longer and general.

A simple plan in four parts

1. Who they were. Open with one picture of them that everybody in the room will know. Not their dates, their habits. The hat they always wore, the radio in the kitchen, the way they answered the phone.
2. Their story. Three or four moments from their life, in order. Where they grew up, the work they did, the family they built, the thing they were proud of. Pick moments, not a full list.
3. What they meant to you and to others. What they taught you, what they gave without being asked, how people will remember them. One honest sentence here is worth a page of praise.
4. A closing line. A thank you, a promise, or a few words they used to say. End softly, then sit down.

Questions to get you started

If the page is still empty, answer these on paper first. Ask a sibling, a cousin or an old friend to answer them too: you will be surprised what you did not know.

• What did they do every single day, without fail?
• What made them laugh?
• What did they always say?
• What were they proud of, even if they never said so?
• Who did they help that nobody knew about?
• What will you miss on an ordinary Tuesday?

Example: for a father

My father, Baraka, never left the house without checking the gate twice. We used to laugh about it. Then I became a father, and I check it twice too.
He was born in 1951, the third of seven children. He walked to school barefoot, and he made sure all five of us never had to.
He was not a man of many words. He showed love by turning up: at every sports day, at every hospital visit, at every graduation, in the same brown jacket.
Dad, we will keep checking the gate. Thank you for everything you never said and always did.

Example: for a grandmother

If you ever visited Grandmother Neema, you did not leave hungry. That was the rule, and she enforced it.
She raised six children and helped raise fourteen grandchildren, and she remembered every one of our birthdays without writing a single one down.
She taught me to plant beans, to pray before a journey, and to never let a visitor stand at the door.
Grandmother, your door is still open in all of us.

Mistakes to avoid

• Reading their CV. The life history in the programme already covers dates and jobs. Choose stories.
• Inside jokes nobody else knows. If you need to explain it, leave it out.
• Settling old arguments. A eulogy is not the place, whoever is in the room.
• Speaking for too long. Others are waiting to speak, and grief is tiring.

Reading it aloud

• Print it in large letters, double spaced. Phones go dim at the wrong moment.
• Read it aloud twice at home, once to someone you trust.
• Mark where to breathe. It is fine to stop, take a sip of water and carry on. Nobody minds.
• If you think you may not manage, ask someone to stand beside you, ready to finish it.

After the funeral

The eulogy is usually read once, and then it lives in somebody's handbag or phone until it is lost. Keep a copy somewhere the whole family can find it, with the photographs from the day and the tributes others wrote.

That is what Album is for: a private family album, on your family's own web address, that keeps the eulogy, the life story, the photographs and the tributes together for your children and theirs. You can look inside a demonstration album to see what that looks like.