How to Write a Meaningful Eulogy

Quick summary

After caring for your parent through the dying process, the thought of preparing a speech and delivering it before a roomful of people may feel like more than you can handle. What if you can't think of what to say, or you break down in sobs and have to be helped from the podium?

If you can relax and put some of these fears aside, you may be surprised to find that preparing a eulogy isn't as hard as you think. Reaching out to comfort others can help you work through your own grief -- and honor your parent at the same time.

The purpose of a eulogy

Before you get started, it's a good idea to think about what you want the eulogy to accomplish. You're there to pay tribute to your parent, but this doesn't mean you need to recite a precise chronology of her life. You?re not a biographer; rather, you?re there to convey your memories, impressions, and feelings. A good eulogy helps bring a person to life through anecdotes and memories -- while bidding her goodbye at the same time.

Getting started

Do some research. Take time to think about what you want to say, and to gather some information. Talk to other relatives and close friends and find out if they have memories or impressions of your parent they'd like to share. Look through photo albums and diaries to jog your memory. If you can, you may want to spend a little time at your parent's home, looking at the books on her shelves and walking in her garden.

Identify your parent's unique qualities. What you're looking for as you gather material are the qualities that made your parent special. Everyone has a gesture, habit, intellectual pursuit, or guilty pleasure that makes her unique. Your father may have been a math whiz who loved arithmetic games and tutored high school kids after retirement, for example. Your mother may have been a Russian scholar who enjoyed bird-watching in her spare time. Was your dad known for making the best martini in town? Was your mother a generous friend who never failed to drop off a pot of soup and flowers for a sick friend? Is there a poem or song your parent loved, or a quote from a famous person that expresses your parent's cherished values or beliefs? Your parent's personal interests and qualities, from the cultivated to the mundane, are what endeared her to her closest friends and family members.

Writing the eulogy

• Make an outline. As you collect your material and talk to others, begin creating a rough outline of the eulogy. At first it will be a jumble of notes and impressions, but it will gradually take shape as you refine your themes. Your outline will give you something concrete to work from, but don't spend a lot of time on it. Think of it as an essential but flexible framework for your work in progress.
• Begin to write. Once you have a fairly comprehensive outline, you're ready to sit down and begin writing. As you face the blank page, with your outline at your side, it's a good time to remind yourself again of the purpose of writing a eulogy. Your goal is to bring your parent to life for those who loved her and to say goodbye at the same time. Remember that a eulogy is not an objective biography but a highly subjective expression of love and appreciation. In your grief, it may be tempting to heap praise on your parent -- but remember that you?re not writing a paean. The eulogy will be far more powerful if your parent sounds like a human, not like a god.

With these goals in mind, begin your first draft. Try not to let perfectionism hold you back. Instead, turn off the critical voices in your head and give yourself permission to write a bad preliminary version. Remember that you can always revise -- and then revise again and again.
Another useful strategy for your first draft is to err on the side of writing more rather than less. This will help you explore feelings and develop your thoughts and ideas. You can cut later on.

• Show, don't tell. Writing teachers often admonish students not to express a point or drive the narrative of a story by telling the reader what?s going on. It?s far more effective to show, through action and dialogue, the point of your story. This is also valuable advice when you?re preparing a eulogy. Instead of telling people that your mother was generous and kind, it?s far more powerful to tell a story that illustrates those qualities. An anecdote that describes your mother's relationship with a lonely child down the street, for example, will paint a far more vivid picture of her compassion than any declaration you may make.
  Don't hesitate to use humor, because people don't mind laughing through their tears. For example, if your father was notoriously absentminded, you can tell about the time he forgot where the car was parked and the whole family had to walk home from Aunt Julia's wedding in their best clothes. Just be sure that the jokes you tell are affectionate in tone, and that they won't be offensive to anyone in the audience.
• Include small details. When considering your parent's qualities and how to illustrate them, don't forget to include small but telling details. Was there a signature facial expression that always passed over your father's face when he was puzzled, for example? Did your mother, a college professor, like to read trashy novels during summer vacation? These types of details will give the eulogy color and energy.
• Decide on the length. In his book A Labor of Love: How to Write a Eulogy, Garry Schaeffer recommends that a eulogy be five to eight minutes long, and from three to seven double-spaced typed pages. But in reality, the appropriate length will depend on how many speakers will be at the memorial, and you'll need to adjust your speech accordingly.

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Organizing your draft

• Introduction. The opening of the eulogy will set the tone, so it may take a little more time than other parts of your draft. A quote, a poem, or a short letter can be effective means of starting your introduction. But no matter how you begin, your introduction should foreshadow the themes that you?ll highlight later on.
• Body. The main portion of the eulogy will be made up of the observations, anecdotes, and other material in your outline. You don't have to follow a specific structure or chronology, but given the time constraints, it's important not to cover too much. Your research and outline will have helped you isolate the themes and highlights of your parent's life, and these will help you shape your material.
• Conclusion. The end of the eulogy should tie your themes together. This isn't the time to introduce a new idea or to wander off on a long, winding anecdote. Instead, end with a short story, poem, or simple farewell. If you find that you've run out of ideas and your conclusion is flat or disappointing, don't worry. Take a break and go back to it when you feel fresher.

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Finalizing the eulogy

• Let your draft sit. Once you?ve finished the draft, it?s important to put it aside for a few days, if you can. If you don't have much time, even a few hours will do. You'll need a fresh perspective for the final revision process.
• Edit and revise. The process of editing and revising your draft is just as important as the writing process -- perhaps even more so. The time you've spent away from it will allow you to look at your draft now with a more objective eye. Check for extraneous material or awkward phrasing. Cut out clich?s and bromides that flow easily off the tongue (and the keyboard) but are likely to make the eulogy sound hackneyed and stale.
• Practice your presentation. Reading your draft aloud will help you improve the flow of the language and identify gaps and misstatements. Print it out in large font with lots of space between the sentences to make it easy to read. Then listen for areas that drag, and make cuts as necessary. When your draft feels complete, practice it a few times alone and then in front of a friend or a family member or two. That way you'll be certain that you've cleared up any confusing areas and that you feel comfortable reading it aloud.

As difficult as it is, preparing a eulogy will play an important part in the healing process. You'll be helping yourself and the other mourners, as author Garry Schaeffer points out. "At a time when memories are so important, writing a eulogy brings them to the surface so they can be relived and grieved about," he explains. "A slow but certain transformation begins when you preserve those memories on paper and share them with people.? When you
deliver the eulogy, it then becomes your gift to yourself and others.