How to write a eulogy for your father, starting from what you actually have.

Start here, not at the beginning of his life. Every guide tells you to sketch a biography — born in 1948, married in 1971, three children, retired in 2009. That is an obituary, and it is the reason you are stuck. Nobody in that room needs the dates. They need to hear him.

A eulogy for a father is made of about 6 concrete things and 1 sentence at the end. That is all. The 6 things are already in your head; below are the questions that get them out.

The 9 questions, in order

Answer them badly, in note form, on your phone, in any order you like. Do not write sentences yet. 20 minutes.

• 01What did he do with his hands?Work, a hobby, a repair, a way of holding a cigarette or a steering wheel. This is the single most productive question there is, because a room can see hands.
• 02What did he say too often?The phrase his children can all do an impression of. Quote it exactly, including the swearing if there was any. This is where he arrives in the room.
• 03What was he unreasonable about?Immersion heaters, motorway routes, the correct way to load a dishwasher, a football club, being 20 minutes early to everything. Nobody is loved for their reasonableness.
• 04What did he teach you without meaning to?Not a value. A skill, a habit, a superstition, a way of standing in a queue.
• 05Tell me about one time. It does not have to matter.A specific Tuesday. A drive to the coast. The time the shed flooded. Small beats important, every time.
• 06What did he never talk about?The war record, the first marriage, the brother, the job he lost. You do not have to fill the gap. Naming that there was one is often the truest thing in the speech.
• 07What would you say to him if he could hear it?Write this one privately and do not decide yet whether it goes in. It is usually your last line.
• 08Who remembers him better than you do?His brother, his oldest friend, the woman who worked next to him for 18 years. Text them tonight, one question each.
• 09What do you want the room to be able to picture when you sit down?One image. Answer this and you know what to cut.

The room does not want a summary of his life. It wants 4 minutes of recognition.

The shape, once you have the material

• 0:00Open inside one scene. Him doing the thing with his hands, or him saying the phrase. No greeting, no dictionary, no “we are gathered here today” — the celebrant has said it and it is not yours to repeat.
• 0:30Who he was to you in one sentence, and only one. “He was a joiner, a Wednesday drinker, and the only man I have ever seen argue with a satnav and win.”
• 1:00Two of the concrete things, with a story attached to each. This is the body of the speech and the reason it is his.
• 2:30The part other people did not see — at work, in his shed, with his own father. Borrow this from the people you texted, and name them out loud: “his brother Michael told me this on Tuesday.”
• 3:30What he leaves in the people in this room. Concrete, not abstract: who now says his phrase, who now cannot pass a hardware shop.
• 4:00The last line. Short. His voice or yours, addressed to him once, then stop and sit down.

Around 500 words, 4 minutes at a lectern. If the room is under 20 people, 3 minutes. See how long a eulogy should be for the timing arithmetic. If you would rather see one finished than be told how to build one, a complete worked example, start to finish is a whole eulogy for a father with the notes it came from printed underneath it.

Four lines that work, and why

My father believed there was a correct way to do everything, including things that have no correct way, such as walking through a doorway or defrosting a chicken.

an opening that earns a small laugh in the first 15 seconds, which the room needs

On the Tuesday before he died he rang me about the immersion heater. That is the last conversation we had, and it is extremely him.

small and recent beats grand and general

There was a version of him at work that I only met twice. Two men have told me this week that he covered for them, quietly, for years, and never mentioned it at home.

for the part of him that belonged to other people

Thank you, Dad. I will take it from here.

an ending: address him once, then stop

If it was not simple between you

Most of them are not, and almost nothing published about eulogies admits it. If he drank, or left, or was cruel in small daily ways that nobody outside the house saw, you are not holding a blank page. You are holding two speeches, and neither is readable. There are 4 ways out of that and they are set out in full in a eulogy for a parent who was not good to you. You do not have to lie, and you do not have to detonate the funeral.

Three things to leave out

• the biographyDates, addresses, job titles and the order of events. The room either knows or does not care, and it costs you a minute you needed.
• the poem you found tonightIt puts a stranger’s voice in the last thing 90 people hear about your father. If a reading matters to the family, give it to somebody else in the service.
• the apology at the start“I am not good at public speaking” asks the room to look after you at the exact moment you need it to listen. It was already on your side.

One test before Saturday: read it out loud, standing, timed. Anything you stumble over twice is a sentence you would not say to him, so cut it. What remains will sound like you, which is the only thing the room is actually listening for.

• How do I write a eulogy for my father?

  Do not start with his biography. Collect 6 concrete things instead: what he did with his hands, what he said too often, what he was unreasonable about, what he taught you accidentally, one specific occasion, and what he never talked about. Then open inside one scene, tell two of those stories, name what other people saw in him, and end with one short line addressed to him. About 500 words, 4 minutes.

• What should you not say in a eulogy for a father?

  Skip the dates, addresses and job titles — that is an obituary. Skip the poem found online, which puts a stranger’s voice in the last thing the room hears. Skip the apology for your public speaking. And leave out anything a sibling has asked you not to say, along with any accusation that the people in the room cannot answer or leave.

• How long should a eulogy for a father be?

  3 to 5 minutes, about 500 words for 4 minutes at a lectern. Shorter for a small room: 3 minutes for under 20 people. Longer never helps. Time it out loud, standing, because reading in your head runs about 30 percent fast.

• What if my father and I did not get on?

  That is the common case, not the exception. You have 4 options: decline, narrow the subject to one true part of him and speak only about that, name the difficulty in a single unapologetic early sentence and then move on, or write the true version privately and read the narrower one. All four are honest. None requires you to detail the harm in front of a room that cannot leave.