Eulogy & memorial
This is the speech people are most afraid of, and the one where invention is least acceptable. Podiumi will not add a single detail you did not give it: no imagined last words, no borrowed anecdotes, no comforting fiction. It takes what you remember, arranges it kindly, and gives you cards large enough to read when your hands are not steady.
Usual length
3–6 minutes
The shape it takes
- 01Who you are to them
- 02An opening image
- 03Memories
- 04What they leave
- 05Closing
Where these go wrong
- Trying to summarise a whole life instead of showing one part of it.
- Writing something you cannot physically get through.
- Leaving out the humour that was actually part of them.
What to dig out before you start
Two to five of these, written as fragments, is everything the tool needs. Specific beats impressive every single time.
Open the writing room- 01An ordinary scene you can still picture exactly.
- 02Something they said often.
- 03A thing they made, fixed, cooked or kept.
- 04What they taught you without intending to.
Finished memorial speeches
Poetic close · 4 min
She left doors open and waited
I am going to keep this simple, because she deserved accuracy more than decoration.
There was a key under the plant pot by the back door. It was there for forty years. It was not hidden well, and that was the point — it was not meant to be hidden, it was meant to be found by whoever needed it.
She never raised her voice. She just left doors open, and waited for people to walk through them.
- Keep it simple.
- She deserved accuracy
- more than decoration.
- She never raised her voice.
- She left doors open —
- and waited.