A eulogy is an element commonly included in a loved one’s funeral, memorial, or celebration of life. A eulogy is often approached as a speech that gives a formal overview of a loved one’s life, highlighting their life’s major milestones, relationships, accomplishments, and passions. It also often includes a reflection on the loved one’s life, who they were, and what was important to them. Writing a eulogy can be an activity of reflection, remembrance, and joy, as you sit down with the memories of your loved one’s unique life. It can be a time to gather information about their exciting journey through life and view that completed journey through a wider lens. We understand that writing a eulogy can also be a challenge. How do you encompass the special and impactful identity of a loved one within a speech? There is no one-size-fits-all answer. In this article, we hope to help you compile sentiments in a way that will make your loved one’s memorial speech truly personalized to them and we have three tips to get you started.
Writing a Eulogy Tip #1
Collect quotes. Writing a eulogy can sometimes feel like an enormous responsibility because it is mostly your perception of and interaction with your loved one whom you are honoring with a memorial speech. But your loved one likely touched the lives of so many other people as well. So why not incorporate that into the eulogy? You can take a step away from the norm of writing a narrative and, instead, gather a few interviews with friends and family.
The first step in collecting quotes is to make a list of people who you would like to interview. While eulogies are often delivered by the children of the loved one or other close family members, you can paint a larger, perhaps more personal picture of your loved one by choosing to interview people from other areas of your loved one’s life. For example, were they someone who took a lot of pride in their job? Gathering a quote from a co-worker might be a nice way to highlight this passion of theirs. Another example comes directly from a family who worked with Lighten. The loved one being honored had a beautifully close relationship with his dog, so his family included a dubbed video recording of the dog delivering a memorial speech as one of the eulogies. You could take this concept and include “quotes” from the family pets when writing a eulogy. Unique perspectives such as these, give friends and family attending the memorial an even wider spectrum on which they can observe and honor their loved one’s life.
Writing a Eulogy Tip #2
Narrate a scene. Eulogies sometimes tend to be approached as chronological timelines of a person’s life or the writer may choose major areas of their loved one’s life (i.e. having kids or a favorite hobby) and highlight details or characteristics from those major areas. One out-of-the-box way to approach the organization of a eulogy is to punctuate the memorial speech with scenes. For example, rather than start a description with, “When she moved into the house on Maple…” you might start it with, “Picture a pale yellow house with white shutters. She had so proudly saved up for the down payment and now she can’t wait to step through the door with her children for the first time.” There can be a sense of closeness to your loved one that comes with placing the listeners within a scene rather than telling them about it.
Writing a Eulogy Tip #3
Our final tip is a reminder that there can be joy in celebrating your loved one’s life. Writing a eulogy doesn’t have to be a somber event, especially if your loved one’s unique personality would dictate otherwise. Could your loved one be described as the life of the party? Then, maybe you could write the eulogy so that it brings life to the celebration and perhaps even includes a few laughs. Did your loved one love to sing and play music? You might choose to end the eulogy with a recitation of their favorite song lyrics. Whichever characteristic(s) of your loved one you choose to highlight, you can feel free to bring some lightheartedness to it.
Writing a eulogy may lead you in a search for the perfect words but it can also lead you toward the larger picture of celebrating who exactly your loved one was. And this doesn’t have to be delivered as a speech. If you’re looking for alternatives to a traditional eulogy/speech, Lighten also has unique memorial tribute examples to share.
