A eulogy that is spoken from the heart will provide your audience with the opportunity to laugh, cry and remember the deceased. This can be achieved by using your own memories, thoughts and feelings when you are writing the eulogy.
A good eulogy will contain a number of elements, listed below are a few suggestions that you might find useful:
- What were the highlights of this person’s life, what were their achievements in both their professional and personal life.
- What were they like as a person, were they witty, charming. What were their hobbies and interests. What were their passions, likes and dislikes.
- What challenges did they face during their illness, how did they cope with these challenges.
- What was your relationship to the deceased. Try to put into words how you felt about their illness, their passing and how you will go on without them.
- Who else was close to the deceased, how do they feel.
- Are their people to thank. Don’t feel you have to mention every name.
How will you structure your eulogy? There are a number of different ways of approaching this. You could start at your earliest memories and work up to today, you could start at today and work backwards, or you could pick a number of key areas and explore them.
One key point here is to keep your eulogy short, you will not be thanked for presenting a 30min eulogy.
You might decide to write your eulogy out word for word or you might just have keywords that will allow you to move from point to point. Keywords will allow you to look at your audience while you are talking to them. An exception to this is where you might wish to recite a poem or other piece of text that you may want to read word for word.
Don’t worry if you become emotional during your presentation, take a few deep breaths and carry on. Your audience will be very supportive of you.
Speak slowly, when we are nervous we tend to speak too quickly. By speaking slowly you will be better able to regulate your breathing and you can ensure your audience will understand every word you say.