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How to Write a Eulogy for a Grandparent

A eulogy full of "cherished" and "irreplaceable" could be about anyone. A eulogy about a fish soup, a mended sock, and a purse with seventeen folded receipts could only ever be about her. Write the specifics only you carry now.

How to write it: three rules of restrained prose

  1. Choose three objects or habits — the kitchen, the coins, the clothing repaired past reason. Specifics are the only honest praise.
  2. Put one line of dialogue in quotes. Grandparents speak in sentences people remember for decades. Use one.
  3. End where their routine ended, not where your grief begins. Say what stays behind — the tin, the recipe, the habit you caught yourself doing.

Pick the "eulogy" mode, put "a grandmother or grandfather, spoken aloud" in the first field, and let the restraint do the rest.

Sample

Sample · Eulogy

Her purse held seventeen folded receipts and no money. She trusted paper, not banks.

For thirty years, Sundays: fish soup. The kitchen door opened at four whether you knocked or not.

- - -

She said: "Eat. Crying's for after."

I ate. Last week I made the soup. It needed more salt. Everything needs more salt now.

Write my eulogy

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