Here is a whole eulogy for a father, and the 9 scraps of paper it came out of.

The problem with a eulogy example is that a good eulogy is 90 percent specific and the specifics are not yours. You read a paragraph about a man who loved fishing and taught his sons the value of hard work, and you cannot use one word of it, because your father sold industrial flooring and hated fishing and taught you mainly how to reverse a trailer.

If you want 2 more samples, and the generic one marked up line by line to show exactly where it goes hollow, eulogy examples, and what to do with them is that page. This one does the other half of the job. Below is one complete eulogy, the whole thing, as it was read out on a Saturday to about 60 people. It is 480 words and it reads in a little under 4 minutes. After it, the same eulogy taken apart: what the son actually typed, in fragments, and which sentence each fragment turned into. That second half is the useful half. Read the speech once, then read how it was made.

Nothing in it is clever. All of it is specific.

The eulogy, whole

My father spent 41 years selling floor covering to people who did not want to buy floor covering, and he was extremely good at it, because he never once pretended to be interested in anything he was not interested in.

the opening, 39 words, one sentence

You could not get a compliment out of him with a crowbar. What you got instead was a phone call at 7am on the morning of anything that mattered. Exam, interview, court date, the day my daughter was born. He never said good luck and he never said he was proud. He said, right, what time do you need to leave.

He was a man who did things with his hands, badly, and would not be told. There is a shelf in my kitchen he put up in 2009 that is 4 centimetres out of level, and I have never fixed it, and now I am not going to. He believed a spirit level was a suggestion. He believed the instructions were for people who had not been doing this for 40 years.

The thing people outside the family did not see is that he was frightened of hospitals. Properly frightened, all his life. He sat with my mother through 9 months of it anyway, every single day, in the chair by the window with the crossword he never finished, and he made the nurses laugh, and then he went out to the car park and sat in the car for 20 minutes before he drove home. I know because I found him there twice.

We argued for most of my thirties. It was about the business, and then it stopped being about the business and was just about the arguing. Two men who were the same shape being told they were the same shape. We got 6 years back at the end, which is more than a lot of people get, and I spent most of them driving him to appointments, which is where we did all our talking. In the car, both looking forward. That was the only way either of us could do it.

He was 74. He wanted no fuss, which is why there are 60 of you here and not 200, and he would have counted you.

Dad, the shelf stays up. Right. What time do we need to leave.

the last line, 15 words, and the only place the opening comes back

Now the same eulogy, backwards

None of that was written as prose. It came out of 9 answers, typed at speed, most of them not sentences. Here is what was on the page before there was a speech.

• “who died and what were they to you” — my dad. flooring rep 41 yrs. 74. we were not close for a long time then we wereThis produced the opening and the closing frame. The number 41 is doing most of the work in the first sentence, and it was already sitting in the notes. Nearly everybody has a number like that and does not think of it as material.
• “was it simple between you, or complicated” — complicatedOne word, and it changed the shape of the whole speech. It is the reason the argument paragraph exists at all, and the reason the speech is honest enough to be listened to. A eulogy that skips the difficulty gets polite attention. This one got the room.
• “what did he say too often” — right, what time do you need to leave. also “the instructions are for people who havent been doing this 40 years”Two exact phrases, in his own words, spelling and all. Both survived into the finished speech untouched, and one of them became the last line. Never smooth these. The badly punctuated version is the true one.
• “what did he do with his hands” — DIY. terrible at it. shelf in my kitchen still wonky, 2009Eleven words became the third paragraph. The shelf is the single detail people mentioned afterwards, and it is the smallest thing in the speech. It is also the thing that made the last line possible, which is how a good ending usually happens: it is not invented, it is retrieved.
• “tell me about one time, it doesnt have to matter” — found him in the hospital car park sitting in the car. twice. didnt say anything to himThis is the centre of the eulogy and it was written fourth, in 20 seconds, under a question that promised it did not have to matter. That promise is why it came out. Asked directly for the most meaningful memory, nobody produces this.
• “what did everyone in that room already know” — that me and him didnt speak much for years. everyone knewThis is the permission slip. Because the room already knew, the argument could be named in public without becoming a revelation. Two sentences, no detail, no blame, and then straight into what came after it. That is the whole technique.
• “what would you say to him if he could hear it” — the shelfs staying upSix words. It is the last line, plus the phrase he said too often, put behind it. The best ending is almost always the answer to this question, cut to its shortest form and placed where a laugh is safe.
• “who remembers him better than you do” — his brother terry, mumHis uncle was sent 3 questions and answered in 40 minutes. The 9 months in the chair by the window came from that answer, not from the son, who had never known how long it went on for. One line from one relative, and the strongest paragraph got 4 words longer and 10 times more solid.

What the example is actually showing you

• 6 paragraphs, and only 1 of them is about the whole lifeThe first paragraph does the biography. Everything after it is 4 specific things and an ending. If you are trying to cover 74 years in order, that is the mistake, and it is the one every funeral-home template encourages.
• the numbers are all real41 years, 4 centimetres, 2009, 9 months, 20 minutes, 6 years, 74, 60 of you. Eight numbers in 480 words. Numbers are the cheapest way to sound like you are describing something that happened, and they are all already in your head.
• no adjectives about him at allHe is never called devoted, loving, kind, strong or a family man. Not once. The room concludes all of it from the car park and the 7am phone calls, and a conclusion the room reaches itself is the only kind it believes.
• the difficult part is 1 short paragraph, in the middle, and then it moves onNamed, not detailed. No accusation, no diagnosis, nobody else in the family described. Then it turns to the 6 years, which is what the paragraph is really for. Honesty that lands is honesty that resolves inside the same paragraph.
• the last line was in the notes on page oneIt was not written. It was found and moved. If your ending feels impossible, you are trying to compose it. Go back to what he said too often and what you would say to him now, and put one behind the other.

Do the same thing with yours, in the next 20 minutes

Do not open a document and start at the top. Answer these 9 in note form, badly, on paper or into your phone. Fragments only, no sentences, no editing. Then order them the way the example is ordered: the number first, then 3 specifics, then the difficult one, then the ending you found in question 7.

• 01Who died, and what were they to you?one line, and any number you already know
• 02Was it simple between you, or complicated?one word, and be honest — it decides the shape
• 03What did they say too often?exactly as they said it, including the swearing
• 04What did they do with their hands?
• 05Tell me about one time. It does not have to matter.the question that produces the car park
• 06What did people outside the family never see?
• 07What does everyone in that room already know?only if you answered complicated
• 08What would you say to them if they could hear it?your last line is in here
• 09Who remembers them better than you do?message that person tonight, with 1 question

If you want the structure explained rather than demonstrated, the six sections a eulogy is made of is the companion page, and how long a eulogy should be tells you what 480 words buys you in a room. If it is your father, a eulogy for your father has the version of these questions written for him.

• How long should a eulogy for a father be?

  About 3 to 5 minutes, which is 400 to 650 words at a nervous reading speed. The worked example above is 480 words and reads in just under 4 minutes to 60 people. Longer than 6 minutes and a room starts to attend to the speaker rather than the person who died.

• Can I copy a eulogy example and change the names?

  No, and you will hear why the first time you read it out loud. A eulogy carries almost nothing but specifics, so a borrowed one arrives at the lectern already hollow. Copy the structure instead: one number, 3 specific things, the honest paragraph, and an ending taken from something they said.

• What is the best way to start a eulogy?

  One sentence containing one real number and one thing they were actually good at. The example opens with 41 years of selling floor covering. Do not start with thanking people for coming, and do not start with a dictionary definition or a poem.

• How do I end a eulogy?

  Find the phrase they said too often, and say it back to them by name. It is almost always already in your notes. In the worked example the ending is 15 words and it repeats a phrase used in the third paragraph, which is what makes it land.