![The template open in Strokes: the title “Eulogy for [Name]” over a picture of morning mist over a still lake.](/_next/image?url=%2F_next%2Fstatic%2Fmedia%2Fhero-light.73179a79.webp&w=3840&q=75)
![The template open in Strokes: the title “Eulogy for [Name]” over a picture of morning mist over a still lake.](/_next/image?url=%2F_next%2Fstatic%2Fmedia%2Fhero-dark.f56d6c14.webp&w=3840&q=75)
When to use it
- A funeral or memorial service where you have three to five minutes to speak
- A celebration of life, where the tone is lighter and there is room for more stories
- A eulogy shared between siblings or friends, each taking part of the life
- Short words of remembrance at a graveside or a religious service
- Speaking for a colleague, neighbor or parishioner you knew in one part of their life
How to use this template
- Ask how long you have
Fill in Before you write after a call with the officiant, celebrant or funeral director: your time, your place in the order of service and who else is speaking. Three to five minutes is common when several people speak, and five to ten when you are the only one, but services vary, so let the person running it decide. Multiply your minutes by 130 for a word target. That is slower than conversation, because a eulogy is read with pauses.
If others are speaking, agree who covers which part of the life, so the room doesn't hear the same story twice.
- Collect raw material for an hour, then stop
Fill the Raw material list fast and without judging it. Then message three people who knew a different side of the person, such as a sister, an old friend or a coworker, and ask each for one story or one phrase by a set day. You will end up with far more than five minutes can hold, which is what you want. Choosing is easier than inventing.
- Find the thread and keep only what shows it
Read the list and look for what repeats: a quality, a habit, a line they said. Write it in one sentence under The thread. Keep the two or three stories that show it best and let the others go, even the good ones. The stories do the work that adjectives can't, which is the old advice to show, don't tell applied to a person.
- Draft the five parts, then delete the prompts
Write the parts in order and don't polish until all five exist. Read the draft aloud with a timer, and if it runs long, cut the life in brief before you cut a story. When it fits, delete every heading, bracket and prompt. The copy you carry to the lectern should hold only the words you will say. For more on each stage, from gathering memories to the morning of the service, see how to write a eulogy.
Sentence starters for each part
When a section won't start, borrow a first line and change it until it sounds like you. The people in these lines are invented, so swap in your own details.
Opening
Say who you are, then give the room one image of the person.
- Start with a place: "If you ever went to see Ellen, you sat at the kitchen table. The living room was for company, and she never once treated any of us as company."
- Start with their words: "Anyone who said goodbye to my father on the porch heard the same thing: 'Drive like your mother's in the car.'"
- Start with how you knew them, when the room might not know: "I'm Grace. I sat next to Tom at work for eleven years, so I know exactly how he took his coffee and exactly what he thought of the printer."
Their life in brief
- "Ellen was born in Duluth in 1941, the third of five sisters. She was the first to leave home and the first to come back."
- "The dates are in the program, so I'll give you three: the year he started at the mill, the year he married Joan, and the year he finally retired, two years after he said he would."
Stories
Set the scene in a sentence, tell it, then turn it back to the person.
- "The summer I was twelve, Grandma decided I would learn to swim. She did not consult me."
- "There's a story everyone in this family tells. I'm going to tell it the way he did, which means slightly wrong."
- A turn: "That was Dad. He never called it kindness. He called it the obvious thing to do."
- A quieter turn: "I've thought about that afternoon a lot this week."
What they leave
- "I catch myself telling my own kids to drive like their mother's in the car. They roll their eyes exactly the way I did."
- "If you want to do something for Tom this week, finish the crossword. In pen."
Goodbye
- "Thank you, Mom. We'll take it from here."
- Back to the opening image: "There's an empty chair at the kitchen table now. We're going to leave it there for a while."
- "Goodbye, Tom. Save me the seat by the window."
A finished example
Here is the template filled in by a niece for her uncle. It runs about 380 words, just under three minutes read aloud, which suits a service with two or three speakers.
Good morning. I'm Nora, Walt's niece. If you ever visited Uncle Walt, you came in through the garage. The front door was for salesmen and the Fourth of July. The garage was where he lived: a radio on the shelf, a coffee can of screws sorted by size, and a pegboard with an outline drawn around every tool, so he could see at a glance who hadn't brought one back.
Walter Lindqvist was born in Ashtabula, Ohio, in 1948. He repaired furnaces for thirty-four years, married my Aunt Carol in 1972, and raised two sons, Pete and Danny, in the house on Elm Street he never stopped improving.
Walt fixed things before anyone asked. When I was sixteen, my car died in the high school parking lot. I called home and nobody answered. Twenty minutes later, Walt's van pulled up beside me. Nobody had called him. He'd driven past the school, recognized the car with its hood up, and turned around. He had it running by four o'clock and wouldn't let me pay him. He said, "Bring me a coffee next time you see me." I owed him coffees for the rest of his life.
That was Walt. He saw what was broken before you'd finished noticing it yourself.
He was not a patient teacher. Danny tells me that learning to solder from his father involved a lot of sighing and one small fire. But he was a thorough one. Every kid in this family left that garage knowing how to check the oil, bleed a radiator and return a tool cleaner than they borrowed it. The last part was not optional.
In the last few years, when his hands wouldn't do what he told them, he taught instead. My son is nine. He spent most of this summer in that garage, and in August he came home and fixed our screen door without being asked. I cried a little. He thought it was about the screen door.
So this is what Walt leaves us: a pegboard full of tools, a family that can fix its own furnace, and the habit of noticing. If you want to do something for him this week, fix something for someone before they ask. Or return something you borrowed. Cleaner.
Goodbye, Uncle Walt. I'll bring the coffee.
Read it against the template. The opening names the speaker and gives one image, the garage. The life in brief is two sentences. Both stories show the same thread, that he fixed things before anyone asked, and each ends with a turn back to Walt. The small fire gives the room one laugh, and the last line answers the coffee from the first story. For complete eulogies for a mother, a father, a grandparent and a friend, see these eulogy examples.
Adapting it to the service
The five parts hold for almost any service. What changes is how long each part runs and who says it.
| Situation | What to change |
|---|---|
| SituationSeveral speakers | What to changeSplit the life: one takes childhood, one work, one family. Each keeps an opening, a story and a goodbye. |
| SituationYou are the only speaker | What to changeFive to ten minutes. Add the third story and give the life in brief a full minute. |
| SituationReligious service | What to changeAsk the clergy first. A Catholic funeral Mass has a homily, not a eulogy; many parishes allow brief words of remembrance. |
| SituationCelebration of life | What to changeA lighter tone and more stories. Keep the turn after each funny one. |
| SituationGraveside, or two minutes | What to changeOpening, one story, goodbye. About 250 words. |
| SituationYou knew them in one setting | What to changeSay how in your first line. Borrow stories from the family and credit them by name. |
| SituationA complicated relationship | What to changeKeep to what was true and good. One honest sentence about the rest is enough. |
Match the tone to the person rather than to the occasion. A retired judge who disliked fuss gets a short, measured eulogy. An aunt who laughed at everything gets one that lets the room laugh at least once. If you are also writing the death notice, the obituary template takes the dates and names, so the eulogy doesn't have to.
Readings to close with
A short reading can end the eulogy or follow it. These are old enough to be in the public domain in the US, so you can read them in full and print them in the program. Name the author when you introduce one.
| Reading | Source | Suits |
|---|---|---|
| ReadingPsalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd” | SourceKing James Bible, 1611 | SuitsA church service; many in the room will know it by heart |
| ReadingEcclesiastes 3:1–8, “To every thing there is a season” | SourceKing James Bible, 1611 | SuitsA mixed room; it reads as poetry as much as scripture |
| Reading“Remember” | SourceChristina Rossetti, 1862 | SuitsSomeone who would not want you to grieve for long |
| Reading“Crossing the Bar” | SourceAlfred, Lord Tennyson, 1889 | SuitsA long life, or someone who loved the sea |
| Reading“Death Is Nothing at All” | SourceHenry Scott Holland, from a 1910 sermon | SuitsA gentle close that imagines them just out of sight |
| Reading“Fear no more the heat o' the sun” | SourceWilliam Shakespeare, Cymbeline | SuitsSomeone who worked hard all their life |
If the person had a song, you don't need to quote it. Say its title and one sentence about why it was theirs, and that will do the job.
Frequently asked questions
How long should a eulogy be?
Ask the officiant or funeral director, who sets the schedule. Three to five minutes is common when several people speak, and five to ten when you are the only speaker. At about 130 words a minute, five minutes is roughly 650 words, which is what the timings in this template add up to.
Can I use this template for a memorial service or celebration of life?
Yes. The five parts work at any service, with or without the body present. At a celebration of life the tone is usually lighter and there is often more time, so add the third story and let the funny ones run a little longer.
Is it all right to read a eulogy from paper?
Yes, and it is the safer choice. Nobody expects a eulogy from memory, and a printed page keeps your place when emotion knocks you off it. Print it in large type rather than reading from a phone.
Can two people give one eulogy together?
Yes. Write one opening and one goodbye together, and split the stories so each person tells the ones they were there for. Rehearse the handoffs once, standing side by side, so nobody waits wondering whose turn it is.
