i
the night
The fear is not writing badly.
It is standing in front of 90 people who all knew him and saying something hollow. That hollow version is the one that stays in the room. There is no second take. Saturday, in a suit, with your sister watching.
There is a second fear, and most people will not say it out loud. It was complicated between you. You do not know how much of the truth a eulogy is allowed to hold.
Tonight you have 3 bad options.
- the free guide7 tips, published by a funeral home to rank on Google. You read all of it. The page is still blank.
- the free machineWarm, fluent paragraphs about a man who loved his family. You can hear it is not your father the moment you read it aloud.
- the writer at $350Genuinely good. Needs days, a phone call, and your father handed to a stranger who bills by the word.
ii
the refusal
We will not write a single word about the person who died that you did not say first.
Yes, there’s AI here. It only uses words you typed. It will never invent a memory about your father.
Its whole job is to cut, order and tighten what you already wrote, then find the line that should end it. Nothing appears on screen about him that you did not put there. That limit is the product, and it is the one thing a free machine cannot agree to.
iii
minute 6
This is what happens at minute 6.
You have answered 4 questions, badly, at speed. Fragments, not sentences. This is what you typed:
- garage light on till 11 most nights
- fixed everyone’s cars, never his own
- said we’ll see when he meant no
- taught me to reverse a trailer in the church car park
the desk reads what you wrote, and hands back this
My father kept the garage light on until 11 most nights, fixing other people’s cars and never his own. When he said we’ll see, he meant no, and every one of us knew it.
your words, in an order you can say out loud
The underlined phrases are his, and so is everything around them. Nothing was added, softened or invented. Beneath it the desk shows which fragment each phrase came from. You can see that it is you.
That is the beat the whole thing is built to deliver early, and it costs nothing.
iv
the desk
1 question at a time. These are the ones that get real material out of you.
Not a template and not a blank box. The desk asks, you type, and every keystroke saves. No account, no password, no card until the end.
- 01Who died, and what were they to you?
- 02Was it simple between you and him, or complicated?2 words to choose from. It branches every question after it.
- 03When is the service, and roughly how many people?2 taps. This sets the length of the speech, and nothing else is asked of you.
- 04What did he do with his hands?
- 05What did he say too often?
- 06Tell me about one time. It doesn’t have to matter.
- 07What does everyone in that room already know?
- 08What would you say to him if he could hear it?
- 09Who remembers him better than you do?This one offers to ask the family. You can skip it.
- 6 minyour first scrappy fragments, shaped
- 15 minthe finished opening and the finished last line
- 18 minprinted, folded, in your jacket pocket
v
question 2
Complicated is the more common answer, and it belongs in the speech.
For a lot of people that is the first time anyone has said it. Every other tool in this category treats a difficult father as an edge case. Here it is question 2.
There is a path for the estranged sister, the drinking nobody wants named, the years he was not there. And there is language for telling the truth without detonating a funeral.
The man who had an easy time of it finds this part hard. The man who did not is the one it was built for.
vi
ask the family
Your aunt remembers it better than you do.
You type in up to 3 relatives and their email addresses. We email each of them 3 questions about the person who died, signed from you. You see the exact note before it sends.
Their answers come back into the desk as quoted memories, with their names attached.
He kept every letter I ever sent him. I found them last night in a shoebox with my name on the lid.
Susan, his sister
The speech stops being your memory and becomes the family’s. That is what a eulogy actually is. If nobody answers within 12 hours, the desk says so plainly and carries on without them.
vii
the script
What $39 buys, once.
Free to arrive. Free to answer all 9 questions. Free to watch your own memories take shape and the family’s answers arrive.
$39 unlocks the finished script, once. No subscription, no trial, no upsell at the moment of grief.
- print-readyLarge type, on paper, marked for breath and pause. Pages numbered, with the last line repeated at the top of the final page in case you lose your place.
- timed to the roomReads in 4 minutes 10 seconds, about right for 50 people. Set from the date and the room size you already gave.
- the 2 hard placesThe 2 lines where people usually break down, flagged, with 1 instruction at each: stop, breathe, look at one person, carry on.
- changes, free, foreverReopen any answer at 7am on Saturday because your sister objected to a line. That section rebuilds. Nothing else moves.
$39 once
If it doesn’t help, write to us and we’ll refund you. We won’t ask why.
viii
plainly
What this is not.
- not a subscriptionNobody should be billed monthly for this. $39, once, and you are never charged again.
- not a machine’s fatherNothing on screen about him comes from anywhere but you. If you want fluent paragraphs about a man who loved his family, they are free elsewhere.
- not for the industryNot for funeral directors, celebrants, clergy, or anyone planning ahead. 1 person at a kitchen table, 4 days out.
- not the wrong roomIf what you need is a poem, a reading or a toast, the guides say so and send you on, for free. Nobody pays $39 to find out they were in the wrong place.
ix
soon
The desk opens soon.
When it does, it opens on a single question: who died, and what were they to you? You type “my dad” or a paragraph. Both work.
If you are the one speaking this Saturday and you cannot wait, write to hello@say-a-few-words.nanocorp.app. It is read and answered, and we will help you by hand.