Memorial Program Maker

Eulogy examples

Most good eulogies follow the same simple shape: say who you are, tell two or three stories that show who the person was, say what they gave you, and say goodbye. The five examples below each take about 2–4 minutes to read aloud.

Every person in these examples is fictional. Borrow the shape and the ideas, then fill it with your own stories.

Write a eulogy from your own memories

Updated October 27, 2026

1. A eulogy for a mother

Good morning. I’m Karen, Linda’s oldest. Thank you all for being here. Mom would have counted you, and then worried there wasn’t enough food.

My mother was a nurse for 34 years, on the maternity ward. She used to say she had the happiest job in the hospital, because nearly every day somebody got the best news of their life. I think she brought that home with her. Our house always felt like something good was about to happen.

When I was nine, I broke my arm falling out of the Hendersons’ tree. I was sure I was in trouble. Mom looked at the arm, looked at the tree, and said, “Well, did you at least get to the top?” I had. She said, “Good,” and drove me to the emergency room. That was her. She wanted us to climb things. She just wanted to be there when we came down.

She sang alto in the choir at Grace Lutheran for 40 years. If you sat near her, you know she sang a little louder than the rest, and a little flat on the high notes, and she did not care at all. She told me once that God wasn’t grading.

In the last months, when she was at the hospice, the nurses would come in on their breaks just to sit with her. She asked every one of them about their kids. She remembered their names. Even then she was looking after people.

What she gave me was this: show up. For births, for funerals, for broken arms, for a neighbor’s bad week. Bring soup. Stay longer than you meant to.

Mom, thank you. We got to the top because you were at the bottom. We’ll take it from here.

What it does well: one short story (the tree) carries the whole speech, and the ending comes back to it.

2. A eulogy for a father

Hi, everyone. I’m Amy, Dennis’s daughter. Dad would want me to start by saying the Titans are going to be fine this year. He’d be wrong, but he’d want me to say it.

Dad delivered mail for 38 years. He knew every house on his route, every dog, every kid who waited by the box on their birthday. He used to tell us that a mail carrier sees the whole town. Who’s sick, who’s waiting on a check, who just got a letter from a son overseas. He took that seriously. He’d knock if a box had been full for two days. More than once, that knock mattered.

He was not a fancy man. He wore the same brown jacket for 20 years. When we bought him a new one, he wore it over the old one.

He was also the most patient person I have ever known. He taught me to drive in a church parking lot in a car with a stick shift, and I stalled it, I think, forty times. He never raised his voice. He just said, “Again,” and turned on the radio.

He loved my mom like it was still their first date. If you’ve been to one family dinner, you’ve heard about that date. The flat tire. The rain. The gas station hot dog. Mom always said it wasn’t that romantic. Dad always said it was the best night of his life. After 50 years, I believe him.

The thing I keep coming back to is the word he used when I stalled that car. “Again.” He said it about everything. A bad day, a lost game, a burned pancake. You try again.

So that’s what we’ll do, Dad. Again, and again. Thank you for teaching us how.

What it does well: it opens with a small joke to settle the room, then finds one word (“Again”) that the family will remember him by.

3. A eulogy for a grandparent

My name is Sofia. Rosa was my grandmother, and for the first ten years of my life, I thought she owned San Antonio.

That’s because everywhere we went, someone knew her. At church, at the market, at the gas station, people called out “Señora Rosa” and waved. They knew her from the bakery. She and my grandfather ran it for 41 years. If you grew up on that side of town, there is a good chance your birthday cake came from her oven.

I spent my summers there. My job was to fold the pink boxes. Her job was to be awake at four in the morning, every morning, and never once complain about it. I asked her why she didn’t sleep in. She said, “Because people are hungry at six.”

She taught me to make conchas when I was eight. Mine looked terrible. She sold them anyway, at full price, and told the customer her granddaughter made them. He bought two.

She was strict about two things: Mass on Sunday and calling your mother. Everything else, she said, could be fixed with sugar. When I failed my driving test the first time, she handed me a pan dulce and said the examiner was probably just hungry.

After my grandfather died, she kept going. She was 85 the last time she worked a full Saturday. When we told her to rest, she said she would rest when the oven was cold.

Abuela, the oven is cold now. You can rest. We have your recipes, and we have each other, and we will keep feeding people. Te quiero mucho.

What it does well: it is short, about two minutes, and built from small sensory details (pink boxes, four in the morning, conchas) that anyone who knew her will picture.

4. A eulogy for a friend

I’m Marcus. Jordan and I met in a dorm hallway at App State, freshman year, when he knocked on my door at midnight to ask if I had a bike pump. I didn’t. He came back an hour later with two pumps and a pizza. That was the start of it.

If you knew Jordan, you know he was always fixing something. Bikes, trails, other people’s bad days. When I moved apartments last year, he drove three hours, carried a couch up four flights of stairs, and then refused to let me pay for gas. He said I could pay him back by helping the next person. I’m still working on that.

He loved the outdoors more than anyone I know. He had just taken over a trail crew for the parks department, and he was so proud and so careful not to show it. He sent me a photo of a new trail sign he’d put up. No message. Just the photo. That was him being proud.

He was also funny in a quiet way. He’d let you finish a long story and then say one word that ruined you. He had terrible taste in movies and defended every one of them.

I don’t have a lesson to wrap this up with. I don’t think there’s one that makes sense of losing someone at 24. What I have is ten years of being his friend, and I wouldn’t trade any of it.

Jordan, I owe you a bike pump. I’ll find the next person who needs one.

What it does well: it doesn’t pretend to have answers for a death that makes no sense. It stays with the friendship and ends on a promise.

5. A eulogy for a spouse

Thank you for coming. Most of you know me as Ellen’s Dave. That’s how I think of myself too.

We were together 31 years. We met at a print shop. She was buying ink, and I was the one who sold her the wrong color. She came back the next day to complain, and stayed for coffee, and that was that.

Ellen was a printmaker and an art teacher. She was not a good cook. I want to be honest about that, because she would want me to be. She once made soup so bad that the cat left the room. She laughed harder than anyone.

She believed everybody could make art. She taught at Franklin High for 28 years and never once gave up on a kid who said they couldn’t draw. Some of them are here today. One of them stopped me in the lobby to show me a print he made last month. Ellen would have cried at that. I did.

Every summer we went to the cabin. No phone. No plans. She would sit on the porch carving a block for hours, and I would read, and we would hardly speak, and those were the best days of my life. You don’t need a lot of words when you’ve been together long enough.

She asked me not to make this sad. I’m doing my best, Ellen.

She also asked that you all stay for the food, and wear something bright, and tell each other stories. So please do that. She’d be watching to make sure.

I love you, Ellen. I’ll keep the porch light on.

What it does well: it’s honest and lightly funny, it lets the speaker say how hard this is, and it passes on the person’s own wishes to the room.

Making it yours

Notice what these share. None of them lists every job or every grandchild. Each one picks a few true moments and lets them carry the speech. To get started on your own, follow the steps in how to write a eulogy, or answer some questions in the free eulogy writer and get a first draft built only from what you tell it.

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