Standing Up for Them One Last Time: A Eulogy for Your Mother or Father

A reader named Laura once told me about the night before she gave her mother’s eulogy. She called her sister at eleven and said, “I have written four pages and they are all about her casserole dish.”

She was laughing and crying at the same time, which is a sound you only hear in the week after someone dies. The casserole dish was blue, chipped on one handle, and had been at every birthday, every funeral, every new baby, every move. “It is the only thing I can think of,” she said. “Everything else is too big.”

Her sister told her the casserole dish was the eulogy. It was. People wept at it. Afterward, three cousins asked if they could see the dish.

Writing about a parent is its own particular weather. You knew them longer than almost anyone else in the room, and also in a strange way less, because you only ever saw them as your mom or your dad. Somewhere out there is the woman who was twenty-two and reckless, the man who was afraid of his own father. Those people are part of the story too.

One thing that helps is to spend half an hour, before you write a single sentence, just collecting. Call a sibling, an aunt, their oldest friend, and ask: “What is one story about Mom that I might not know?” Write down every answer, even the odd ones. You are not writing a biography. You are gathering the pieces that make her recognizable.

The psychologist Dan McAdams, at Northwestern University, has spent decades studying what he calls narrative identity: the idea that each of us makes sense of our lives by telling them as a story, with turning points, setbacks and moments of meaning. A eulogy, seen this way, is the last telling of someone’s life story, by the people who knew it from the inside. It does not need every chapter. It needs the ones that show who they were.

This shape works for most services and is easy to remember if your hands are shaking.

1. Introduce yourself. “I am Sarah, Jim’s youngest daughter.” Even if everyone knows you, it steadies the room. 2. Open with one image. The casserole dish. The way he whistled when he came in from the garage. One concrete thing. 3. Tell a little of their life. Where they grew up, what they did, how they met the other parent or the people they loved. Three or four sentences is plenty. 4. Share two or three stories. Choose ones that show their character: one funny, one tender, one that surprised you. This is the center of the eulogy. 5. Say what they gave you. The values, habits or phrases you now carry. “Because of my father, I cannot walk past a crooked picture frame.” 6. Speak to them, or to the room. A short thank-you, a goodbye, or a line they used to say.

For most funerals, a eulogy of about three to seven minutes feels right. Many people speak at roughly 130 to 150 words a minute, slower when they are emotional, so:

• 3 minutes: about 400 to 450 words, a little under one typed page
• 5 minutes: about 650 to 750 words, around a page and a half
• 7 minutes: about 900 to 1,000 words, around two pages

If several family members are speaking, it can help to agree beforehand who will cover which part of their life, so that the stories do not overlap. Reading it aloud once at home, with a timer, tells you more than any word count.

Take these, bend them, make them sound like her.

• “Mom believed there was no problem that could not be improved by a sandwich. She was right more often than you would think.”
• “She raised four children, two dogs and one very difficult husband, and she did it all while humming.”
• “My mother never told me she was proud of me. She told the woman at the bank, the mailman and every nurse in the county.”
• “If you ever got a card from her, you know her handwriting leaned forward, as if it was in a hurry to reach you.”
• “The last thing she said to me was ‘Did you eat?’ Which, if you knew her, was the same as ‘I love you.’”

• “Dad fixed everything in our house with the same roll of duct tape. I believe it is still in the garage, and I believe it is still holding something together.”
• “He was a quiet man, so when he laughed, the whole room turned around to see what had happened.”
• “My father taught me to drive, to change a tire and to apologize first. I am still working on the third.”
• “He was not perfect, and he would want me to say so. But he showed up. Every game, every recital, every bad day.”
• “He used to end every phone call with ‘All right then.’ So, Dad: all right then.”

If the relationship was complicated, honesty can be gentle. Lines such as “He was not always easy, but he was always ours” or “She loved us the best way she knew how” let a room breathe without pretending.

• Print it large. Fourteen or sixteen point, double spaced, pages numbered. Tears make small fonts swim.
• Mark the pauses. A slash where you want to breathe. People will wait for you.
• Bring water, and if it helps, a person. Some families ask a sibling or friend to stand nearby, ready to finish reading if your voice gives out. Knowing someone is there often means you will not need them.
• Look up at the ends of sentences, even if only at one friendly face.
• If you cry, let it happen. Nobody in that room will think less of you. Most of them will love you a little more.

A eulogy is spoken once, and then the pages go into a drawer, or a handbag, or get lost in the car. Yet it is often the most complete thing anyone ever writes about a parent. Some families like to keep it with the photos and recordings, so grandchildren can read it one day. On Stella Memoria, the eulogy can sit on a memorial page that stays, next to the photos, videos and voice recordings, and relatives and friends can add the stories you did not have time to tell. If you would like gentle prompts for gathering those stories while there is still time with an older parent, there is also a guide on how to ask your parent about their life.

Laura still has the blue casserole dish. She keeps her eulogy folded inside it. She says it is the only place it makes sense.

How long should a eulogy for a parent be?

Most eulogies run between three and seven minutes, which is roughly 400 to 1,000 words. Five minutes, or about a page and a half of typed text, suits most services. If other people are speaking too, a shorter eulogy is often kinder to everyone.

How do you start a eulogy for your mom or dad?

Many people begin by saying who they are and their relationship to the parent, then move straight into one concrete image or memory. Starting with something specific, like a phrase they always said, draws people in more than a general statement about their life.

What if I cannot get through the eulogy without crying?

That is very common and completely understood at a funeral. It can help to pause, breathe and take a sip of water. Some people ask a sibling or friend to stand nearby with a copy, ready to continue reading if needed.

Can someone else read the eulogy for me?

Yes. If speaking feels impossible, a family member, friend or the officiant can read your words. Many people find that hearing their own words read aloud still feels like their gift to the parent.