Eulogy

[bananafanana1]

My husbands mum has passed away and I'm trying to support him as best as I can.

He wants to do a eulogy at the funeral so I'm looking for any ideas I can pass on to him. Thank you

My Brother did the eulogy at both my DF's and my DM''s funerals (2 years apart). For DF's, I managed to find some things amongst his paperwork which included his end of school reference which DBro was able to use. He also had the advantage that DM was still alive to gather stories about his early life. It's not until your parents die that you realise how little you know about them!

For DM's it was a little more difficult, but he managed to get some stories off surviving relatives to put together some recollections of her early life.

One tip we were given by the vicar regarding reading the Eulogy was to give a copy to the vicar (or some other willing person) so that if the reader breaks down and can't carry on with it, then someone else can quickly take over. Fortunately this didn't happen but it is a comfort knowing that there is a back up plan.

Everyone does different things for Eulogies. I found that Googling gave lots of different suggestions about what you might include. Your DH must so what feels right for him and his Mum.

Sorry for your loss

Thanks @bigbluebus - I'll suggest he gets other family members to review and input. Great tip on passing a copy to someone else, I know that it would be hugely difficult for me to do something like that. Thanks again.

I was going to say the same as BigBlueBus
Although, he should remember he doesn't have to read it - it is an incredibly difficult thing to do and it is often a lot more sensible to get someone else to read your thoughts.
That said, it just needs to be 'the story of their life' really, and is probably bet written together with an older relative (your dh's Aunts, Uncles or Dad) or close family friend, along with siblings, if he has them.

My sister and I recently did one for my Mum. We picked 5 or 6 things about her and wrote a paragraph for each, usually with an anecdote to illustrate. We took it in turns to read each paragraph.

My Mum knew a lot of people in different capacities - she'd been a teacher, a mother, a grandmother, chair of governors, had run an after-school club etc - so after we'd talked we played a short piece of music and invited people to spend a few moments in silence thinking of their own 'eulogy'. Later some people told us what they'd thought about which was lovely.

Aww thats a lovely idea, thank you Tranquility

At a funeral that I attended recently, they had some notebooks passed around so you could write memories of the person. There were some lovely glimpses of their life, which I hope would comfort the family.

Thanks Ada, I'll see what he thinks of that idea

I wrote and read eulogy for my dad, content wise it was memories, written in a very humorous way but still underlining his good points ... it was telling that the priest (who'd helped me practise) was laughing and then started the mass by saying "so, before anyone calls the police, can we all stand...."

Practically: read, read andcreread it so it becomes less emotional each time, almost like you are wearing it down, and if the priest if in a church, or peeson running service at venue will let you, go in and read from where he will actually be stood, makes it a lot less nerve wracking

for your loss

Thanks for the tip Joyce- it'll be very nerve wracking for him so that's a good idea