How to Write a Meaningful Eulogy

You are tasked with delivering a eulogy for the funeral service of your loved one. 

How to deliver a meaningful eulogy? What should we write? Writing can be difficult especially when it is as important as trying to convey and honor a loved one’s precious life story.

Worry not, we got you covered. This article will teach you how to write and deliver a meaningful eulogy so that your loved one’s life can be well appreciated. 

What Is a Eulogy?

A Eulogy is a speech delivered at a funeral service that praises or honors someone who has just died. It is an opportunity and is regarded as an honor to receive the task of giving a eulogy to a loved one.

A good eulogy pays tribute to the person and highlights the fondest memory that reflects the deceased well,  prompting the attendees of the funeral service to remember the deceased together in a meaningful way.

How to Start Writing a Eulogy? 

Reflect and Remember

Start by taking the time to reflect and remember the person you are honoring the eulogy with. 

Grab a paper or a note of your preference and list any important memories, achievements, attitudes that you remember from the deceased. 

It is okay to start messy, the goal of this first step is to map out possible ideas that you can later organize into a structured flow of eulogy speech. 

Reach Out to Other Close Connections of the Deceased

Ask other friends, your loved one’s spouse, work colleagues, and other people to share what they remember about your loved one.

Let them know that you are writing a eulogy for your loved one’s funeral and would love to hear if they have anything memorable that they’d like to share. 

You might or might not end up incorporating their story into your speech, but it will definitely help to paint a picture of how your loved one has impacted others and is being remembered by other people around them.

Organize All the Pieces of Memories

Now after gathering thoughts and memories from yourself and others, it’s time to select which piece you’d like to deliver in your speech. 

Write it down. Conclude, highlight and summarize. Don’t try to include all impressions and memories because it can make the eulogy speech hard to follow for the audience. 

Instead, from the many memories try to find a commonality or silver lining of character or attitude that was present in each of them.

You want to highlight that, for example, characters like courageous, goofy, confident, kind-hearted, humble, or other positive qualities. 

Pick one that is truest to your loved one personality and make that the main theme of your speech as to how you want others to remember your loved one. 

And then, pick the memories or stories that best represent that character. You could open your speech by sharing that story with the audience. It would be a nice bridge to then highlight the character of your loved one.

You’re now good to write the script for the eulogy! What we have gone through, is the first major part of writing a eulogy speech. 

We are starting with ideation, jotting down ideas, memories, and impressions, and selecting which we would like to highlight in the speech.

The next major step is to start scripting and structuring the speech. We will discuss that below. 

Before getting into the scripting step, here’s a list of what should be included in the eulogy to help you know what to choose and consider to incorporate in your speech. 

What Can Be Included in a Eulogy?

To write a meaningful eulogy, you need to be able to identify and highlight something unique from your loved one so that they can be remembered well.

Here is a list of possible ideas that you can include in the eulogy of your loved one.

• Favorite places
• Likes and dislikes
• Work and passion project
• Hobbies
• Key milestones
• Significant accomplishments 
• Poems, books, movies, or favorite songs.
• Motivations
• Ideals or principles
• The favorite moment you remember with them

These topics will help you draw inspiration and write a eulogy that highlights your loved one’s uniqueness. 

In all of these topics, try to see beneath why your loved one loves it. Getting to understand the motivation behind it will tell you a lot about how your loved one perceives things. 

Alright. Thanks for lending an ear. Let’s get back to reading!

How Long Should a Eulogy Be?

Aim for 7 to 10 minutes of speaking time at most, or around 1,000 to 1,500 words. 

Fitting someone’s whole life story into that amount of time can be challenging. Treat it as a general rule. Delivery of speech can vary between persons. Everyone has different tone and pace preferences when delivering a speech. 

Instead of focusing on time, try to focus on the structure of your speech. A good structure will automatically deliver a concise yet meaningful eulogy speech. 

How Do You Structure a Eulogy?

Here is how to write a eulogy that is well structured

Introduction 

This is the opening. The goal of the opening is to set the tone for the rest of the eulogy speech. You could do this by acknowledging your loved one’s death, with words like “Today we all gather here to honor (the deceased name)”. 

A bit of introduction about yourself will help and is usually followed by a bit of explanation of your connection to the deceased.

Here’s how one example of how you can introduce yourself. “My name is (your name) and with only a handful of meaningful relationships that I cherish all my life, my longest work partner here, (the deceased name) is one that I treasure the most. I’m honored to receive the task of delivering this eulogy for (the deceased name)”.

Remember the focus of the eulogy speech is always about the deceased. Touch a point about yourself only if there’s a correlation to the deceased. 

In the next part, you could choose whether to elaborate more on your connection with the deceased, like how you met them, and what made both of you so close. 

Or you could go straight into bridging towards the main part of the eulogy by telling a story about the deceased. 

There are people who also open with a quote, or scripture that was meaningful to the person. As long as it sets the tone towards the main message of the eulogy, it is a good introduction.

If it is necessary, mentioning a cause of death is also acceptable. 

Main Part of the Eulogy

Moving on to the body of the Eulogy. If you are telling stories and memories of your loved one, to draw a theme and remembrance point, this is the part where you do it. 

This is where your core message to leave a lasting impression on remembering your loved one will be delivered. 

Tell stories, great stories, one that some will know but not everybody. It can include professional accomplishments, or it can also be funny and quirky.

What describes your loved one the most? For what is the deceased most known for? Why does he or she work so hard on that passion project they have been working on for so long?

Bring them back to life, tell stories, say what they meant to you. Share the part of someone that existed only in you.

Ending the Eulogy

The goal of the ending of a eulogy speech is to say goodbye to the loved one. Wrap up with a summary of the person’s life. 

Give your final takeaway from the speech and conclude it with how you want the audience to remember the individual or re-highlight what the deceased would want others to remember them for.

Close it by saying goodbye to your loved one. If you find any poems, quotes, or scriptures that are meaningful for closing your speech, go on and include that. 

Thank the attendees for participating in the funeral service. 

Eulogy Example 

Check our other post for more expansive meaningful eulogy examples. Here are two of them.

Eulogy example for Dad 

By April from write-out-loud.com

First I would like to thank all of you for your support. It means so much to us all.

Vincent was my father but he was also father to Donna, Joey, John Sr., Miriam, Harel, and Alex, and Grandfather to John Jr. Alison, Hailey, Kayla, Jake, Lila, and Carissa, plus Uncle to many nieces and nephews here with us today.

We all have memories of Vincent. I want to share some of my most precious childhood memories with you now. 

(Read more on their page here)

Eulogy Example for Mom

By Elizabeth from griefandsympathy.com 

“Thank you for being with us today, to celebrate the life of a remarkable woman, my mother Ellen. There are no lessons about ‘The Art of Mothering’ we can only do our best and hope that we do it well. My mother certainly got an A ++ in this.

She was a caring, supportive, and loving wife, mother, sister, grandmother, and friend. Yet she was shy and unassuming and always said of herself “I am just a housewife”.”

(read more on their page here)

What Are the Ways to Practice Giving a Eulogy?

Public speaking is difficult. Especially when delivering a eulogy, when emotions are high, pressure can mount up. 

After finishing writing your eulogy speech now is the time to practice giving a eulogy. Here are some tips for you:

Mirror Practice

One of the biggest distractions when delivering a speech is the insecurities of not performing well or being afraid of judgment from audiences.

To combat this fear, you need to build confidence in yourself so that it won’t bother you.

To build confidence, practice giving the speech in front of a mirror. Read and talk your script and see yourself in the mirror. Get comfortable with how you look, and if there’s anything that you think needs improvement, try and improve it.

You don’t have to memorize anything, just reading and talking about the script is fine. The goal is to condition your mind and get comfortable with delivering a speech.

Test Record

The same with mirror practice, this one is for you to get comfortable with your voice. Record yourself, watch it, and see if you are happy with the result.

You might find some tone, or pace in your funeral speech delivery that are a bit off. Fix it!

Doing so, when you finally fixed and get comfortable with the final recording after a couple of revisions, will provide firm confidence in your delivery. 

You have heard yourself, you have improved where needs to be improved, so you know you are good to go. This confidence will allow you to not be distracted by fear of poor delivery on the day of the speech. 

Visualize

Visualize yourself giving the speech. It will help you prepare mentally. People can get nervous if the situation isn’t as they expected.

Picture yourself standing at the podium, looking down at the audience. Imagine the number of people that will be watching you. Will you be holding a microphone or with a microphone stand?

The clearer the better, as it will prepare you to not get shocked at the day of delivery. It even helps to arrive at the funeral service earlier before others and try to give a speech with no one watching. That’s total preparation! 

Memorize

Usually, the most difficult part of public speaking is the beginning. The first 15 seconds can feel very overwhelming and strange.

But the good news is that once you get through that, everything changes. 

You started to get relaxed, your brain started to know what words to say, and the overwhelming feeling is fading.

It helps to memorize the first 15 seconds of the speech. Give it extra practice to the point you can say it without any worry. 

Doing so will help you get to the easier part of the speech (the post first 15 seconds) firmly. 

Delivering the Eulogy on the Day of Funeral Service

The day has come and now is the to deliver the eulogy for your loved one. 

You have prepared well, but more importantly, realize that you are there as an act of love to honor your loved one.

Think of it as a final gift. Even if it feels daunting, just remember your relationship with the person and how your eulogy would be a good way to honor their memory.

There is no pressure to be perfect. Just be genuine and express your love naturally. Follow how your heart would want to express your love through the funeral speech. 

End of Article

Receiving the task to deliver a eulogy for a loved one is a precious opportunity. You get to honor and appreciate their life and the impact they have. 

There isn’t a right or wrong way to write a eulogy. Follow your heart. Eulogy or funeral speech is your chance to share your love and honor the memories of your loved one.

We hope this article helped you in your preparation for delivering a meaningful eulogy. Thank you for reading through. Good luck!