pick the one
that is keeping
you up
If what you want is the number, there is one page here that is not an article: paste your eulogy and see how long it takes to read out loud. It counts in your browser and keeps nothing.
- he was your fatherA eulogy for your fatherThat you will stand up and describe a generic father, and the room will know it is not him.
- she was your motherA eulogy for your motherThat everything true about her sounds like a greetings card the moment you write it down.
- one finished eulogy, taken apartA complete worked example, start to finishThat you have read 20 examples and still cannot start, because none of them were about a real man.
- you were married to themA eulogy for a wife or husbandThat you will break in the middle and never forgive yourself for it.
- you were there for all of itA eulogy for a brother or sisterThat the room will treat your grief as smaller than your parents’, and you will perform for them instead of speaking.
- when he was your own generationA eulogy for a brotherThat you will either read a list of childhood stories nobody else can follow, or stand up and be unable to say anything at all.
- you only knew the last partA eulogy for a grandmotherThat you will get a date or a place wrong in front of people who were actually there.
- when his life happened before you arrivedA eulogy for a grandfatherThat you only ever knew the old man in the chair, and everyone in the room knew someone else.
- he was not your fatherA eulogy for a stepfather or stepmotherThat someone in the third row is thinking you are not the one who should be up there.
- when he was not a good manA eulogy for a parent who was not good to youThat you will either lie about a monster in public, or tell the truth and blow up the family.
- he drankA eulogy for a father who drankThat you will either read a stranger’s eulogy about a devoted dad, or say the word out loud and watch the front row flinch.
- when she was not an easy motherA eulogy for a difficult motherThat the room has decided in advance you are grief-stricken, and you are something else.
- the last years were the illnessWhen the last years were dementiaThat the woman you describe will be the one from the last 2 years, and not her.
- you were the funny oneA eulogy for a friend, and how funny you are allowed to beThat you will either be flippant at a funeral or sentimental in a way he would have mocked.
- it was far too earlyWhen the death was early or suddenThat you will stand up and say something that makes a preventable death sound like a plan.
- when he took his own lifeA eulogy when they took their own lifeThat whatever you say, half the room will think you said too much and the other half will think you covered it up.
- you are speaking as the officeA eulogy for a colleagueThat you will stand up and sound like a company statement about a man his wife loved.
- when your window was smallWhen you barely knew themThat you will stand up and produce four minutes of things anyone could have said.
- you were the one who couldA eulogy for an aunt or an uncleThat you are the wrong person, and that everyone in the room knows the right one is sitting in the front row.
- when you married into itA eulogy for a mother-in-law or father-in-lawThat someone in the second row is thinking: who is he to be up there.
- you should not have had toA eulogy for a son or a daughterThat they will be remembered as a thing that happened rather than a person who was here.
- they are calling it something elseSpeaking when they will not call it a funeralThat the informal room means you cannot be serious, or that you will start talking and nobody will stop drinking.
- before you write anythingWhich one were you actually asked forThat you will prepare 8 minutes about a whole life and then be handed a lectern for 90 seconds.
- you have hours, not daysWhen the service is tomorrowThat it is 11pm, the service is at 11am, and you will stand up holding nothing.
- the number you came forHow long a eulogy should be, in minutes and wordsThat you will ramble, run over, or stand up with ninety seconds of material.
- the fear you have not said out loudHow to get through it without breaking downThat you will get four lines in, your throat will close, and you will have to sit down.
- standing up with itHow to actually deliver it on the dayThat the writing will be fine and the delivering will not.
- the second thing you have to sayWhat to say at a graveside or a committalThat you got through the church and then froze in the cold with no paper in your hand.
- it is late and there is nothing on the pageHow to start when the page is completely blankThat you will still be staring at nothing on Friday night.
- what it is made ofThe six sections a eulogy is made ofThat you will write four good paragraphs that do not add up to a speech.
- the thing you are ashamed ofWhen you do not feel sad and have to speak anywayThat you are cold, that people will see it, and that you will have to fake it at the lectern.
- the opening and the endingHow to open, and how to endThat the first sentence will be flat, and everything after it will sound flat too.
- you came looking for examplesEulogy examples, and what to do with themThat you will read a sample, use its bones, and stand up saying somebody else’s words about your own father.
If the thing keeping you up is not on this list, write to hello@say-a-few-words.nanocorp.app. It is read and answered by us, and we will help you by hand, free, whether or not you ever pay for anything.
or do it
with the desk
Everything above is free. The desk is what happens when you need the words out of you, tonight.
Nine questions, one at a time, in the order that actually produces material. Six minutes in it shows you two sentences you would genuinely say out loud, with your own phrases underlined underneath, so you can see it is you and not a machine’s idea of the person who died. That part is free and it arrives before you are asked for anything.
If you want the whole thing — the assembled script, the read-aloud version with the breath marks and the two lines where people break, printable, yours to keep — it is $39, once. No account, no subscription.
No account, no password, no card until the end. About 15 minutes.