How to write a eulogy — a structure that holds when you can't

A eulogy is a short speech, given at a funeral or memorial service, about the person who died. It is usually three to seven minutes long — about 500 to 1,000 written words — and it has one job: to put the person in the room one more time. You do not need to summarize their whole life. You need to tell the truth about them, in your own voice, for a few minutes.

Who gives the eulogy, and how many

There is no rule. Commonly it is an adult child, a sibling, a spouse, or a close friend — sometimes two or three people speak, each briefly. If you have been asked and you are not sure you can get through it, say yes anyway if you want to: there are ways to handle the hard moments (below), and a eulogy read imperfectly by someone who loved the person lands harder than a polished speech by someone who didn't.

A structure that holds

When you're grieving, a blank page is an enemy. Borrow this five-part shape and fill it in. It works for almost any life and any speaker.

1. Open with a specific moment. Not “Webster's defines love as…” and not “Thank you all for coming.” Start inside a scene: the kitchen, the garage, the phone call, the thing they always said. A specific opening tells the room this will be about them, not about death in general.
2. Say who they were to you. One or two sentences. “She was my mother, and for thirty years my first phone call.” This orients everyone who doesn't know you.
3. Tell two or three stories. Not a chronology — stories. Pick ones that show the qualities everyone in the room will recognize. If people quietly nod or laugh in recognition, you have chosen well. One funny story is almost always right, even at the saddest services.
4. Name what they taught or left behind. The habits, the phrases, the way of doing things that the people in the room now carry. This is the part that turns grief toward gratitude.
5. Close by speaking to them, or for the room. Two common closings that work: turn to address the person directly (“So, Dad — we'll take it from here”), or give the room one sentence to keep (“If you knew her, you know what to do: notice the light”).

Sounding like yourself

Write the way you talk. Read it aloud as you draft — anything you stumble over out loud, rewrite. Avoid the funeral register (“she touched so many lives,” “he lit up every room”) unless you mean it literally; those phrases are true of everyone and therefore describe no one. The test for every line: could this sentence only be about them?

Delivering it — and what to do if you cry

• Print it in large type, double-spaced, on paper — not a phone. Number the pages.
• Practice aloud two or three times, including once standing up. You will find the sentences that break you; mark them.
• If you cry, pause. Take a breath, take a sip of water, and continue. No one in the room will think less of you — the room is crying too. Crying and continuing is not a failure of the eulogy; it is the eulogy.
• Appoint a backup reader. Give a copy to one person in the front row who will finish it if you can't. Knowing the backup exists is usually what makes it unnecessary.
• Slow down. Grief-adrenaline makes everyone read fast. Aim to speak noticeably slower than feels natural.

Using Mourning to draft a eulogy

Mourning's writing assistant can produce a first draft from the memories your family has already gathered — the stories, the phrases, the details contributed to the archive — organized in the structure above. It is a starting point, deliberately unfinished: the voice has to be yours. Read it aloud, cross out what you would never say, and add the story only you know.