Eulogy Examples
The fastest way to learn what a good eulogy sounds like is to hear one. An annotated excerpt below — then opening lines from every relationship.
Excerpt — eulogy for a father
"My father taught me to drive, to shake hands, and never to buy cheap boots — in roughly ascending order of importance. He wasn't a man who said 'I love you' often. He said it other ways: a checked tire pressure, a paid-off layby, a porch light left on long past the hour he pretended he'd gone to bed. When I was 23 and my first business failed, he drove four hours, helped me pack the office into his ute, and said exactly one thing: 'Righto. What's next?' I have spent twenty years trying to be that sentence for other people."
Why it works: Three concrete memories, one repeated theme (love shown through acts), and a closing line that hands the father's legacy to the living. No adjectives were harmed — it's all specifics.
Opening lines, by relationship
“My mother had a saying for everything — and standing here, I finally understand most of them.”
“My father taught me to drive, to shake hands, and to never buy cheap boots — in roughly ascending order of importance.”
“Nan's front door was never locked, and neither was any part of her heart.”
“My grandfather built things that lasted — including this family.”
“I married him for his laugh, stayed for his heart, and I'd do all of it again twice over.”
“She walked into the room, and — as everyone who ever met her knows — that was that.”
“You can judge a person by their friends — which is why we're all sitting a little taller today, having been his.”
“For the record, since he can no longer dispute it: I was right about the go-kart in 1987.”
“She was born two years before me and spent the rest of her life two steps ahead — usually looking back to pull me along.”