What to Say in a Eulogy
Whether tasked or asked, writing and delivering a funeral speech can feel like a daunting responsibility. Chances are if you’re the one giving the speech, you might have more than a passing connection to the deceased, and summing up their entire life and accurately painting them as they meant to many different people can seem impossible to do justice, or perhaps you have your own complex feelings and struggle to find a place to get started, In the wake of grief loss, and death, a wide range of emotions are normal, expected, and welcome.
Authentic Storytelling:
The body of a eulogy is where you can pour your heart and soul onto the page and share the most details with those gathered to remember the dead.
Formatting the instances in a person’s life as stories seems to be the best way to help people remember what their loved one was like in life and appreciate the time they spent together.
To put a slightly different spin on the perspective of a eulogy, to write one is a creative action of an intensely personal nature. In short, it’s a work of art. Therefore, some tips and tricks cribbed from good advice for starting and completing creative projects apply and might serve as a foundation on which to build your tribute. This article will take you through the process, start to finish, and all you really need is a writing device and something on which to write. If you’re finding it difficult to write, speak, or even think about a eulogy, we hope the information in this article might help you find some comfort, inspiration, or both. At the very least, an arrow pointing in a direction.
Before you begin, and throughout the time you spend working on crafting the eulogy, always remember there is absolutely no pressure to be perfect. Besides the fact that perfection itself is a nice fantasy, everyone who will be in attendance at the funeral or wake will understand any sort of hiccup or emotional bubble-up. They’re on your side, grieving and remembering the dead right alongside you. Part of the reason public speaking is such a feared activity is the notion of being weighed and found wanting by our community. Take a breath and let that go, before each step, before each time you sit down to work on it, before you take the podium. You’re not alone, and no one is judging you. Write (and speak) directly from your heart and your feelings, and everything will be fine.
Brain Dump
The first step in the writing process is always the rough draft; you can’t get to the final draft without the rough draft. A really good place to begin is with a brain dump. With a pen or pencil and paper or in your preferred word processor or writing app, start jotting down anything you remember about the deceased without worrying about form or making mistakes. That’s all for later, right now it’s just getting ideas and memories out of your head and onto the page.
Since the purpose of a eulogy is to, A) summarize a person’s life, and B) highlight examples of their individuality, think about their quirks, their best qualities, their achievements, and, if applicable and appropriate, their foibles. There’s no wrong answer at this point. You can also include things you learned from them, funny or heartwarming anecdotes, and shared experiences. It might be helpful to talk with friends and family too, asking them to share stories and insights and include them all in the brain dump.
Doing this step can help process the swirling mess of thoughts and feelings about the dead, and give you a bird’s eye view of how you'd like to remember them, and how you think they might like to be remembered. Once you’ve gotten everything down, the next step is to circle or highlight pieces you might like to use and group them into sections that make sense to you. Maybe have all the funny stories here, career achievements there, and illustrations of their philosophy over here. This will help you build the main body of content for your speech.
The Body of Your Speech
Common advice for any sort of project is to start at the beginning, but trying to come up with the perfect introduction often creates another roadblock. In the case of a eulogy, it might be helpful to jump right into crafting the main body of your speech using the information from your brain dump session. Here, you can start taking a more refined approach to communication. Imagine a single person you know would love to hear you talk about the dearly departed, and write as if you're telling the story of their life to that person.
The body of a eulogy is where you can pour your heart and soul onto the page and share the most details with those gathered to remember the dead. Describe the person’s qualities, explore the impact they made on their community. In general, formatting the instances in a person’s life as stories seems to be the best way to help people remember what their loved one was like in life and appreciate the time they spent together. Using real examples and painting a real picture is effective in honoring connections and aiding the grieving process.
Obviously, since no one is perfect, not every memory is a good one, and sometimes significant aspects of a person’s life result in uncomfortable or painful memories and complicated feelings. There is no need to shy away from these realities, and no shame in sharing them. It’s not speaking ill of the dead to speak truthfully and could provide closure (or at least the seeds of closure) for anyone affected. Human lives are rarely simple, and no one’s only one thing. Include it all, speak from the heart, let yourself grieve.
With all that being said, there are a few guidelines that can help you determine what points to hit or what things to include. These can be categorized into the Four M’s:
The Four M’s…
Meaningful - speak authentically about the deceased.
Memory - share stories & funny anecdotes.
Mode - What were some remarkable experiences that deserved to be shared?
Motto - What stories and examples are there that clearly illustrate what the dead believed about life?
Meaningful
Things that are meaningful focus on how the deceased might like to be remembered. What would they hope to be remembered for? What are they remembered for? Would they prefer their life be celebrated, instead of their loss being grieved? What were things they cared about and why? What events or details contribute to whatever legacy they leave behind? What is a story that everyone already knows, but so clearly illustrates a key aspect of their life?
Memory
Touching stories, funny anecdotes, random memories that pop up when the dead’s name is mentioned. This is where you can most accurately describe who they were, what they meant to others, what you learned from them. Personal remembrances and musings from family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers might be helpful to include and be a way to engage the community around you as everyone grieves. Memory is linked to many of our senses, so including experiences with sound, smell, touch, etc., will help paint a more detailed picture, and allow those gathered to more fully remember what their loved one was like.
Mode
“Mode” refers to the details of how the deceased lived. Try to include a brief personal history of their life, like when and where they were born, the general trajectory their life took, and how they spent time before their passing. Include notable moments from their upbringing and accomplishments in their career and in their personal life. What were the hobbies, their passions they pursued? What awards did they win? What education did they receive? What were some remarkable experiences that deserved to be shared?
Motto
A person’s motto is their personal philosophy. A motto guides their life, informs their decisions, and serves as an anchor and a lighthouse. What stories and examples are there that clearly illustrate what the dead believed about life? How did they tackle adversity? How did they contend with self-doubt and confusion? How did they turn their imagination into reality? What were the aspects of their personality that were unwavering, and what changed with time?
Introduction and Conclusion
Now that you’ve written the body, it’s a good time to write the intro and conclusion. Doing it this way gives you a chance to reflect on your whole piece, write an intro that can lead flawlessly into your main content, and a conclusion that sums everything up.
Your intro doesn’t need to be too long, however. The intro sets the tone for the speech and gives a hint at what the attendees are going to hear. A really good place to begin is by introducing yourself with your name, a few small personal pieces of info, and an identification of your relationship to the deceased. You could also take this time to express personal messages to anyone in attendance at the funeral or wake.
The conclusion is the mirror image of the intro, restating and summarizing the ideas that were expressed throughout the eulogy. This can be done with a meaningful sentiment, something important you learned from the dead, or what you hope the mourners remember of their late loved one. Something significant about them that stuck with you throughout the years, and how much you’re going to miss it. Specific examples work best.
For both the introduction and the conclusion, sometimes people opt for reading a poignant poem, sharing a religious verse, or contemplating a quote that encapsulates the personhood of the one being eulogized. Whatever way you choose, as long as it feels true and comes from the heart, will work just fine.
At the end of your speech, make sure to thank everyone for coming to honor the dead, and how much their support means to you personally, and the family and close friends during a time of extreme grief. Death is something that happens to the living, and all of us left need our communities to hold us up.
Personalize the Eulogy…
Consider reading a poignant poem, sharing a religious verse, or contemplating a quote that encapsulates the personhood of the one being eulogized. Whatever way you choose, as long as it feels true and comes from the heart, will work just fine.
Time To Edit
After writing the first draft, it’s time to edit. However, there’s a crucial step in between drafting and editing. And that’s time spent away.
Oftentimes with creative projects, especially when strong emotions are involved, judgment and self-doubt can creep in. Editing straight out of the gate can result in too harsh a judgment of your work, and derail the whole thing. So put the draft away for a few hours, maybe even a day. Close the window out, store the notebook in a drawer, and take time to let the words you wrote sit and sift through your mind. Give yourself time to breathe, go outside for a walk, read something you enjoy. Then come back to it.
In the editing step, you’re looking for grammar, clarity, and tone. Even though you wrote it and know what you’re trying to say, you don’t want any errors left to accidentally fluster, confuse, or hang you up in the moment when you’re delivering the eulogy, especially since your emotions might already be behind only a thin veil. A fine-tuned draft is your best friend.
Sometimes it helps to view your document from a different perspective, too. Have a friend look it over to make sure it flows well and fits into a conversational tone. Reading through it backwards by section, or changing the font and size in the doc are tried-and-true writer hacks to catch more typos or other errors, since our brains tend to glaze over things we’re too familiar with, even if they are mistakes. A thorough edit will help you feel confident and prepared for your delivery on the day.
But just remember, it still doesn’t need to be perfect, it just needs to be honest and heartfelt. That’s what matters most.
Practice, Practice, Practice
The last step in preparing your eulogy is to practice it. Read it out loud several times to yourself to see if you like the way it sounds, and see if you might want to reorder anything or change anything to sound more natural. You could record yourself doing it and listen back to it later, which might also help with memory — though since you will have the speech with you, there’s no need to worry about memorization. Practicing in front of a small audience might be helpful, too, like partners, close friends, or immediate family members, as they could offer constructive feedback and perhaps help solve problems you feel stuck on.
If you feel like you need to, focus on diction and projection when you practice. Diction, or enunciation, is a clear pronunciation of consonant sounds, and projection — often confused with “just being louder” — is breath support from the diaphragm to give your voice support when talking in front of groups of people. These are details that can definitely help in giving any speech and might help to focus or ground you if you are starting to feel emotionally overwhelmed, but are not necessarily requirements.
At the end of the day, the important thing is that you feel you’re able to express yourself well and fully through your eulogy. Everyone who will hear you speak is on your side, so even if mistakes happen, it’s not the end of the world.
How Long Should Eulogies Be?
The first piece of advice for how long eulogies should be is to not worry about how long your eulogy is. The second piece of advice says that typically, eulogies are anywhere from 3 to 20 minutes, which is a good length to shoot for. Try to strike a delicate balance between including everything you want to about the deceased and getting rid of anything that isn’t important or has already been expressed elsewhere in your speech. Generally, we think faster than we talk, so reading your speech out loud is a very good activity for gauging the time it will take. You can also estimate that one whole page typed in a 12-point font can take between 1 and 2 minutes to read, depending on how fast you speak (e.g., five typed pages is around 10 minutes.)
Final Notes
A eulogy is an important part of grieving rituals in the face of losing someone to death, and therefore has the possibility of feeling weighty or overwhelming, from the beginning of brainstorming what you’d like to say right up until actually saying it. Allow yourself the time you need to process your emotions throughout the process, as they’re just as important. Eulogies are tributes to honor our mourned dead, but they are not the most important thing in the world. If you lead with love and gratitude — including offering those to yourself — you’ll be on the right path. Focus on memories and messages you know the deceased might have liked, remember to take breaks, clear your head, and ask for help when needed. Put it away when you need to, and come back to it when you feel inspired. Most importantly, remember that your loved one would be proud of what you’ve created and accomplished no matter what.
Give Yourself Grace…
Try to strike a delicate balance between including everything you want to about the deceased and getting rid of anything that isn’t important or has already been expressed elsewhere in your speech.
If you lead with love and gratitude — including offering those to yourself — you’ll be on the right path.
Written by: Brendan Reilly
