Eulogy Template: How to Write a Eulogy, With Example

A eulogy is the speech at a funeral or memorial that remembers the person who died. It is not a full biography: it sketches their life in a few sentences, then tells two or three stories that the people in the room will recognise, says what the person gave them, and ends with a goodbye. Three to five minutes is usual; it is written to be read aloud by someone who is grieving, so it is short and plain.

Get these right before you write

1Ask family and friends for one story each, then choose the two that sound most like them.

2Use their words and habits: the phrase they always said, the dish they always made.

3Three to five minutes is about 400 to 650 words; print it in large type.

4Mark a place to pause, and have someone ready to finish reading it if you cannot.

A complete example

Written by the AI from this brief, exactly as the workbench would write yours:

A four-minute eulogy by a granddaughter for her grandmother, Rosa Delgado, who died aged 89: she came to the city at 19, ran a corner grocery for 40 years where she knew every customer’s name and let children pay later, raised four children with her husband Luis, who died in 2015, grew tomatoes on a tiny balcony and gave them away to the whole street every August, and always said “there is always room for one more at the table”; warm, with one gentle funny moment about her refusing to let anyone else carry her shopping.

For Rosa Delgado

Who I am

Good morning. I'm Rosa's granddaughter. To most of you she was a neighbour, a friend, the woman behind the counter. To me she was Abuela. She was the first person I called with good news and the only person I called with bad.

Her life

Rosa came to this city at nineteen with very little. She met Luis, and together they raised four children and ran the corner grocery for forty years. She knew every customer by name. If a child came in short of money, she let them pay later. Most of them did. The ones who didn't, she never mentioned.

She lost Luis in 2015. She missed him every day. But she kept the balcony tomatoes going, and she kept the table set.

Three things I remember

The tomatoes

Her balcony was tiny. You could not turn around on it. Somehow, every August, it produced enough tomatoes for the whole street. She would knock on doors with a paper bag and say, "Take them, I have too many." She never had too many. She just liked giving them away.

The shopping

Abuela did not let anyone carry her shopping. Not at seventy. Not at eighty-five. You would reach for the bag and she would pull it away like you were trying to steal it. "I am not dead yet," she would say. We would walk home together, her with two full bags, me with nothing, and the neighbours looking at me like I was a terrible grandchild. I tried. I want that on the record.

The table

Her favourite thing to say was, "There is always room for one more at the table." And there always was. Friends of friends. The new family on the corner. Someone's boyfriend nobody had met yet. She would find a chair, move a plate, and make it true.

What she gave us

She gave us tomatoes and groceries and a chair at the table. But what she really gave us was the feeling of being expected. Of being counted. Nobody left her house hungry, and nobody left feeling like a stranger.

Look around this room. That is forty years of people she made room for.

Goodbye

Abuela, you carried the shopping right to the end. You carried all of us too.

Luis has been waiting. I hope he has the table set.

We love you. Rest now.

Names, figures and dates in the example are made up for illustration.

How it works

1Open the template: a document with the skeleton and the brief appears.

2Add one line about your case to the brief, or attach your notes as sources, and press First draft.

3Edit directly, or ask the AI to tighten, expand or translate any passage; every AI change is reviewed before it lands.

Questions

Can I use the example as it is?

The example shows the shape and tone; its names and figures are made up. Open the template and give the AI your own facts, and it writes yours in the same shape.

Does it work in English and Chinese?

Yes. The document is written in the language of your brief, and any passage can be translated afterwards.

Is it free?

Writing is billed by the tokens used, usually a few credits per draft; the template, the skeleton and the editor cost nothing.