Make Your Eulogy Personal - The Use Of Examples Of Eulogies
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A eulogy is not an easy thing to deliver, and examples of eulogies might make your task a little easier. It involves speaking before a group of people about the person who has died. This can be quite a daunting task, since if you are the person presenting the eulogy, chances are you’re emotionally affected by the death of the person, as well as having to cope with writing and presenting the eulogy. Examples of eulogies may be just the helping hand you need.
Step one here right now is DONT PANIC. Yes it’s easy for someone else to sit back and say that, but since you have to do this anyway - the best thing for you to do (since you may not be thinking clearly at this point) is to take a deep breath, and follow guidelines which will show you step by step how to write a great eulogy you will be proud of. So lets get started.
It is a responsibility you have been given, so you know you need to do this right - no matter how impossible it seems at the moment. You know you can’t just copy examples of eulogies with a word changed here and there - you want this to be just right, so the person deceased would be proud of you. Every word you say will go home with everyone listening to you, so you want it to be personal.
There is no set time frame for how long it will take to prepare a eulogy, or how long it should go for. It is an individual thing - it may take hours of researching information from others. Some things you might go to others for are:
1. Stories from other family members
2. Stories from friends
3. Memories and stories from employers and co-workers
4. Neighbour’s memories
5. Stories from other associates
You may even get some enjoyment from this part of the process, learning more about your loved one that you didn’t know.
While it’s easy to get examples of eulogies and just reword them for your own use, would it not feel better to have the skill to write and deliver a very personal eulogy - both as a sign of respect for the deceased and for your listeners who are relying on you?
You do not need any great skill to be able to do this. All you have to do is complete each step individually, and at the end when you look back, you will see what a great job you have done. So off we go.
Once you have done any research you feel is necessary - if any - get yourself a pen and paper, or a computer, and lets start. The first thing to do is to make brief notes or general comments about what you want to talk about. This should be just simple terms such as a persons name, a place of employment, a town or suburb, periods of life eg childhood, teen years etc, social events, memberships, accomplishments, and other life events or memories. Just note form at this point is fine.
Next look back at your list, and place each point in order as you think they should go eg childhood events would come before adult accomplishments etc. It doesn’t have to be perfect, just a rough order. Remember at this point you are doing great to get this far. You are doing the right thing by doing this properly, rather than just copying examples of eulogies from other people.
Now go back to each point and expand on it. Remember you are not writing an essay for high school, but rather something which needs to sound informal and personal. As you write each sentence, stop and read it back out loud to your monitor or your fridge or your loungeroon lamp, or whatever is nearby - imagining it is a person you are telling it to. If it didn’t sound quite right when you read the sentence to the lamp, then say it out loud again as you would normally say it to someone, and edit the sentence on paper to what you just said.
After you have done this with a couple of sentences you will get the hang of it, and it will get easier with each sentence. After writing all the sentences, go back, and ignoring the fact that you probably haven’t written an introduction or conclusion yet, read it through out loud again. You may find you want to make some further changes as you go. This will come quite naturally as you read along.
An introduction isn’t always easy. An example of how to begin is maybe with a short comment, statement or very short story using the persons name. You could also state the main reasons you will miss him/her.
The final thing to add is the conclusion. You could include in this a blessing, a prayer, a nice poem, and other final thoughts you’d like share.
Then all that is left is to read the entire thing back to make sure it sounds like you want it to. A good idea is to either read it to someone else and ask them to help you with anything that doesn’t sound right, or get a tape recorder and record you reading it, and play it back. Then you can listen for yourself. Congratulations on making it to this point - you know you have done a good job no matter what you have written, simply because it is personal and came from you, and you didn’t take the easy way out and copy examples of eulogies.
You only get one shot at this, so some final points to remember are that a personalized message is more important than getting grammer, etc correct, and that you are doing this for your loved one, so do not be afraid to say what you feel is important, or of any emotion throughout it - that is what you are there for, to celebrate the life of the person.
