How to write a eulogy from two or three true stories

A eulogy is stories, not a CV

The most common mistake is to treat a eulogy as a summary of achievements — born here, studied there, worked at these three places, retired in that year. That's an obituary, and it's already in the programme. A eulogy does something different: it lets the room feel what it was like to know this person. You do that with stories, not a list. Two or three of them, told with enough detail that people can see the scene, are worth more than every date and title strung together. So when you're tempted to add another accomplishment, add a story instead.

Choosing your two or three stories

You're looking for stories that carry the person's character — the way they were in a room, not just what they did. A few kinds work well together:

• The one everyone tells: the story the family repeats at every gathering, the one that always gets the knowing laugh. Telling it from the front makes the room feel held, because they already know it and you've said it aloud for them.
• The one only you know: the small moment nobody else was there for — the lift home in the rain, the advice at the kitchen table, the argument you lost and were grateful for later. This is what makes the eulogy yours and no one else's.
• One that shows a flaw, gently: the stubbornness, the terrible driving, the refusal to ever be early. A real person had edges, and naming one kindly makes all your praise believable.

Openings that actually work

Don't open by introducing yourself and explaining how you're related — the programme already says that, and it wastes the moment when the room is most with you. Start inside a story instead. 'My father had exactly one recipe.' 'The last time I saw my sister, she was arguing with a traffic officer, and winning.' A first line that drops us straight into a scene does more than any 'we are gathered here today.' If you're stuck, write the whole eulogy first and then steal your opening from the best line in the middle.

The honest close

The ending is where clichés crowd in — 'gone but not forgotten', 'in a better place', 'rest in peace'. They're easy because they ask nothing of you, and they land as nothing for the same reason. Close instead on something specific and true: what you'll miss, what you'll carry, what you'll do differently because you knew them. 'I'll keep answering the phone on the first ring, because he taught me that.' A eulogy doesn't need to resolve grief or tie it up in a bow. It can simply end on the person, and let the silence after it do the rest.

How long it should be

Three to five minutes. That's roughly 400 to 700 words, and it is shorter than almost everyone expects. At a South African service there are often several tributes — from the family, the church, the workplace, a friend — and a programme director keeping the day moving towards the committal and the meal. A tight five minutes that people remember is a gift to everyone; fifteen rambling ones are a burden, however much love is behind them. If you have more than three stories, you don't have a longer eulogy — you have material for the people speaking after you.

Write it to be spoken

A eulogy is read by your mouth, not the listener's eye, and the two want different things. Sentences that look fine on paper can strangle you at the lectern. Write for breath:

• Keep sentences short. If you run out of air before the full stop, the sentence is too long — cut it in two.
• Use the words you actually say. 'Dad couldn't sit still' beats 'my father was a man of restless energy.'
• Mark your breaths. Print it large and double-spaced, and put a slash or a blank line where you'll pause. Those marks are where you'll recover if your voice goes.
• Read it aloud, standing up, at least twice. You'll hear the tangles your eye skips over, and you'll find out where you're going to cry.

Delivering it when you might cry

Almost everyone is afraid they'll break down, and many people do — it is completely normal, and no one in that room thinks less of you for it. What helps is deciding in advance what you'll do when it happens. If it helps to hear how others have done it, we keep eulogy examples for different relationships, and a simple read-aloud timer that tells you your true spoken length before the day.

• Pause. A silence feels like an hour to you and like a moment to everyone else. Stop, breathe, and start the sentence again. No one is going anywhere.
• Keep water at the lectern. Sipping it is a socially invisible way to buy fifteen seconds.
• Let the congregation carry you. If you can't go on, that's what the room is for — someone will say amen, someone will start a hymn, and you can gather yourself. You are not up there alone.
• Have a backup reader. Give a copy to someone in the front row who can step in and finish if you truly can't. Knowing they're there usually means you won't need them.