Is this normal in a eulogy?

[LaLaLouella]

I attended a funeral recently of an old family friend. In her eulogy, which was delivered by the by the vicar and written by him in conjunction with her husband, they completely missed out a good 30 years of her life! According to them, she left school got a job and then reappeared as a 50 year old about to marry him with two adult children and a few grandchildren.

No mention at all of her first marriage or husband (30 years!), their divorce, having her children, no anecdotes from her career or life when she was young. Just schooldays and marriage to second husband and then stories about their retirement and grandchildren.

Is this normal? To erase so much of someone's life as it ended in divorce? I found it bizarre.

Sounds very odd to me.
Incredibly so, if there were existing children from 1st marriage sat there listening. Hurtful even.

I know a similar situation, the woman (my friends mother), got married at 18, had five children, she had an affair and left the children with her husband, moved to a different part of the country and only moved back when all the children were in their late twenties and early thirties. When she died her funeral did not mention anything between 18 and 60, it also made out she was some amazing mother, when she left her youngest children at three and did not return until they were nearly twenty.

My friend said to me after "That woman sounded amazing, that was nothing like my mum", instead of starting the grieving process she (and her siblings) ended up being angry that they had been lied to and gaslighted again. The thing is her mum was always a narcissist and that just carried on into her funeral, the woman had even written her own eulogy, which pretty much says it all.

So no, it is not normal, but unfortunately it is not that uncommon.

I think I will write my letter own soon. No one writing it will know anyone who knew me when younger.

@Sexnotgender

The minister can only deliver what they’re given. If the person organising the funeral omits a load of information there isn’t much they can do.

This, unfortunately.

I’m a parish minister, and unless I knew the person well myself, I have to rely on the family for information. I do try to make sure I have as much information as possible, and in a situation like this I would attempt to speak to the first family as well. But I could only do that if I had contact details for them.

I have in the past had several meetings with different family members, and friends, to piece together a more complete life history for the eulogy, and I can understand how unsettling it must have been to hear a eulogy which missed out to much. I would have struggled with that myself as the person taking the funeral.

And in response to a pp who referred to the ‘funeral industry’ and it being the person who pays who determines what is said, that is certainly not the case in the Church of Scotland nor, I suspect, in any other denomination. As a Church of Scotland minister, I receive no payment for the conduct of funerals, and I will take the funeral of anyone in my parish, church member or not.

MIL wrote her own eulogy ( very typical!) and I noticed how much time was focused on her wonderful childhood and early adult years and then her 60 year marriage and 5 children were covered in about one sentence.

Nobody really mentioned it and it was made up for during speeches at the reception but I thought it was pretty sad.

The saddest funeral I went to had no eulogy.

An elderly, wonderful, well loved member of our community.

His wife left him thirty years ago, taking the two children. He saw them regularly but after about ten years moved in with a man. She was with someone else but never got over it. His male partner then died shortly before him and she was in charge of funeral.

He was such a character, full of kindness, did so much for the community, his profession and the local arts and festivals.

It was simply this is the funeral of X. Prayer. The end.

Not a thing was said. Just so sad.

@stripetop that is sad. She must have had so many complex emotions too.

This happened to me when my dad died. My 'dear' step mum told the vicar that she didn't want my mum or me mentioned during the eulogy. It was horrible

I had a similar experience. My 'dear' step Mum wrote a eulogy for the vicar that read like a CV and focused on my Dad's work life. Anything previous to her entrance into his life was omitted. His childhood, his family, his long marriage to my Mum, his only child (me) his three grandchildren, his friends and his passions were all excluded. In the end I gave the eulogy as I just couldn't bear the thought of his life being reduced to the dates of his birth and death, and a run down of the companies that he worked for. It was very hard to do but I'm really glad that I did it, and I think that I did a good job.

The best eulogy that I have heard was written by a dear friend for her own funeral. She had a terminal illness and knew that she was dying and so did it all herself. It was brilliant, funny and incredibly sad all at the same time. It literally felt like she was there with us all, just chatting, so was very special.

@stripetop

The saddest funeral I went to had no eulogy.

An elderly, wonderful, well loved member of our community.

His wife left him thirty years ago, taking the two children. He saw them regularly but after about ten years moved in with a man. She was with someone else but never got over it. His male partner then died shortly before him and she was in charge of funeral.

He was such a character, full of kindness, did so much for the community, his profession and the local arts and festivals.

It was simply this is the funeral of X. Prayer. The end.

Not a thing was said. Just so sad.

I'd have got up and said something about him in that situation.

@Sn0tnose

My aunt had one like this. It completely omitted her first marriage and her child from that marriage but went on for a good fifteen minutes talking about a childhood my mum didn’t recognise at all and how their dad would drive the train taking them out to the countryside. Their dad was not a train driver. It was very odd.

The train thing is BIZARRE!

@RedHelenB yes, I should have.

It is a small parish church and I was upstairs, in the sort of gallery behind glass. The church and grounds were full. It sort of happened before I knew it had happened if that makes sense. I was sitting thinking what's going on and everyone was leaving.

We did arrange a local sort of board about him within the community hall and I always take flowers when I go to see my mother and grandmother.

But yes, he was let down.

@LaLaLouella

It was just such a jarring omission!

The first marriage did end badly, he was a total shit and they spent a good number of years hating each other. But then the grandkids arrived and they decided it was better for everyone if they got along and put it behind them.

The first husband was at the funeral to comfort their daughters and grandkids so they all sat there and listened to the marriage and childhoods be skipped over...

This is interesting to me, as I can imagine there were people there who would have felt making heavy reference to her first marriage was glossing over the fact that it was very unhappy. Just because they made up for the sake of the grandchildren, it doesn’t mean people want to hear about the ‘golden years’ of a marriage where the deceased was actually treated like crap.

Unless I read your opening post wrongly, her children and grandchildren were mentioned - the eulogy just didn’t go into great detail about their childhood. I’ve never really understood this idea that a eulogy is a biography slashed potted history of someone’s life anyway.

I gave my nan’s eulogy, and it honestly never occurred to me that I should give a list of events from her life. I spoke about her personality; what made her unique. My dad gave my other grandmother’s eulogy a year later and it was very much ‘She got married in 1940, had her first daughter the following year, was widowed in 1974, retired in 1980…’ I would never tell my dad this, but I honestly found it a bit soulless.

Did your friend’s eulogy tell you about her, as a person? To me that’s way more important than a rundown of events and dates.

I'd find it very odd.

I was involved in writing the eulogy of a relative who had been breifly married, then widowed, in the 1940s, with one child resulting. He was mentioned, along with how happy we understood her to have been at that time. Second husband was also mentioned - in more detail, but they were married for decades rather than months!

I guess the second husband could contribute much so they left it out????

When my Grandma died my parents did this - her husband, my Grandad, had died a couple of years earlier, and he was an absolute bastard, she was the victim of domestic abuse throughout her marriage, both physical and mental, think leaving her 3 times, trying to get her declared an unfit mother, rryi g to avoid paying money when he kept leaving her, but then sadly going back, punching her, pushing her head in plates of food if he wasn't happy with what she made, bullied his sons relentlessly, the youngest being told he should have been aborted etc... Only when my dad was big enough and knew he could take him on did he start standing up to him.

Her eulogy went from "Joy's Grandma was born inxxx on xxx.... She had 4 wonderful children...". It completely skipped her marriage and any mention of her husband.

The useless piece of shit deserved no one's breath bring used to utter his name.

I went to my dads funeral earlier this year. We hadn't spoken for 18 years so his stepson did the eulogy.

I was mentioned in passing, but most of it was about what a great stepdad he'd been. It was weird considering he hadn't bothered with me from the age of 16, but had met his new wife around that time and treated her sons like his own, they are around the same age as me.

Oh well. I went because I thought I should, I'd didn't have any particular emotions about it (only that it was held in the same place as my brothers funeral, which was one of the last times I spoke to my dad)

*Do you understand how busy ministers are? It’s not an episode of who do you think you are? Where they have time to find long lost relatives and uncover witty anecdotes.
*
@Sexnotgender

Wow. Sorry they are such a bother!
Do you realise how much they mean to the bereaved?

Do you realise how this comes across?

@sunglassesonthetable

*Do you understand how busy ministers are? It’s not an episode of who do you think you are? Where they have time to find long lost relatives and uncover witty anecdotes. * *@Sexnotgender*

Wow. Sorry they are such a bother!
Do you realise how much they mean to the bereaved?

Do you realise how this comes across?

Don’t be ridiculous. It’s not that they’re “a bother”. It’s that minister’s workload is massive and if they don’t actually know the deceased then they can ONLY go off what the person is telling them. There simply isn’t time to do anything else. I’m sorry if that upsets you.

Apparently yes. My PIL wrote my DHs eulogy when he unexpectedly passed away. We were in the process of separating and he had a new girlfriend. Our marriage/life together was completely left out, talked mostly about his childhood and the new lady (mistress BTW). Never felt so dismissed or irrelevant in my life.

I attended a funeral where the previous two marriages and resulting children were effectively erased from history. Who pays the piper calls the tune.

Eulogies are hard! Everyone knows the deceased differently. For my DMs funeral, my brother the wrote the eulogy. He tried to include everyone that knew her and it was a lovely eulogy. However, what came through was how he saw her. I saw her differently as we had a different relationship. I'm glad he wrote it as I wouldn't have had so many nice things to say!

Ultimately they are hard to write, even by the most thoughtful of people like my brother. They will always be influenced by the writer and their own relationship with the deceased - not to mention the utter brain fog and devastation they may be feeling when trying to write the thing.

People talked about a man I didn't recognise at my fil's funeral!

But it was arranged by his 2nd wife and dh's half sister over 20 years younger than him. So I get tha. They did mention 1st wife, DH and SIL but the service very much focussed on the 2nd family. I really hope fil was a good dad and DH to them because he was pretty rubbish dad to DH!

Don’t be ridiculous. It’s not that they’re “a bother”. It’s that minister’s workload is massive and if they don’t actually know the deceased then they can ONLY go off what the person is telling them. There simply isn’t time to do anything else. I’m sorry if that upsets you.

You didn't answer the question. Did you realise how what you said came across?

@Sexnotgender

At my FIL's funeral, I don't know who wrote the eulogy, but considering that MIL was his second wife, and my husband and his siblings were his step-children, his actual own biological children and grandchildren weren't mentioned at all! But I was. As were our children. His poor daughter and her children were sat in the row behind me absolutely sobbing, I was shocked and felt awful. After the service, I apologised to her as I felt what had been done was incredibly disrespectful.

DH’s dad died abroad during covid and service was online. He’d had no contact with DH and his siblings since they were small. I did watch and was shocked how angry it made me. There was an online eulogy jumping from childhood to wife 2. There was an online comments section and I was so tempted to fill in the blanks but obviously didn’t. He had 5 children not 2 etc.