Eulogy Examples That Sound Like Real People

Good morning. I'm Sarah, Linda's oldest. Thank you all for being here. Mom would have counted the chairs and worried there weren't enough.

Every house has a junk drawer. Mom's was the third one down, left of the stove, and it was not junk. If you needed a birthday candle, a rubber band, a stamp, a battery that still worked, the phone number for a plumber who retired in 1994, it was in there. When I got older I realized it was just Mom, paying attention for years to what people might need before they knew they needed it.

That was how she loved. She wasn't a big speech person. She was a "did you eat" person. She worked nights as a nurse at County General for twenty-six years, and she still made Sunday pot roast, still showed up to every band concert, still sat on the edge of my bed when I couldn't sleep and rubbed my back until I could.

When my son was born early, she drove four hours in the rain and walked into the NICU with a bag of granola bars, a phone charger, and a pair of my old socks because she knew my feet got cold. I hadn't told her any of that. She just knew.

She had a saying when something went wrong: "Well. We'll figure it out." Not "it'll be fine." She never promised that. Just that we would figure it out, together, one thing at a time.

I don't know how to figure this one out yet, Mom. But I know where you'd tell me to start. Eat something. Call your brother. Get some sleep. So I'll do that.

I cleaned out the junk drawer last week. I couldn't throw any of it away. Thank you for everything you kept ready for us. We love you.

My dad was not a man of many words, so I'll try to keep this short. He'd appreciate that.

Ray Delgado fixed things. Cars mostly, for thirty-one years at the shop on Fourth Street, but also lawnmowers, bicycles, the neighbor's fence, a toaster that cost eleven dollars new. He didn't believe anything was really broken. It just hadn't been looked at by somebody patient enough.

He taught me to drive in a 1978 Ford pickup with a clutch that stuck. I stalled it in the church parking lot nine times in a row. He never raised his voice. He just said, "Again," and drank his coffee, and waited. On the tenth try I got it, and he nodded once, and that nod was worth more than any trophy I ever got.

That's how he was. He didn't say "I'm proud of you." He'd show up at your apartment with a toolbox and fix the leaky faucet you hadn't mentioned. He'd change your oil without asking.

He whistled while he worked. Always the same three or four songs, always a little off-key.

Dad, I know you'd tell me not to make a fuss. I'm making one anyway. You were patient with me when I didn't deserve it, and you showed me what a man does when he loves his family: he shows up, and he stays. I'm going to try to be that kind of father to my kids.

Again, Dad. I'll keep trying again. Thank you.

Hi everyone. I'm Kaylee, one of Dot's fourteen grandchildren, and the cousins asked me to say a few words for all of us. I'm honored, and also a little terrified, so bear with me.

Grandma Dot's house smelled like pound cake. Not sometimes. Always. I'm convinced she had one in the oven for forty years straight. She used the same recipe card, stained brown, with her mother's handwriting on the front and her own notes on the back. One note just says "more butter than this."

If you were one of her grandkids, you knew the routine. You walked in, she said "Let me look at you," held your face in both hands, and told you that you'd grown, even if you were thirty-five. Then she fed you. Then she asked about your life and actually listened, and somehow by the end you'd told her things you hadn't told your parents.

She made a quilt for every one of us when we graduated high school. Mine has a square made from the dress I wore to my fifth birthday. I didn't know she'd saved it.

She did the newspaper crossword in pen every morning until she was ninety-one. When I asked why pen, she said, "Because I'm going to get it right." That was Dot. Confident, a little stubborn, and usually correct.

The last time I saw her, she couldn't remember my name for a minute. But she held my face in her hands and said, "Let me look at you." And she did. She looked at me like I was the best thing she'd seen all day. That's what she gave all of us, every single time.

Grandma, we'll keep making the pound cake. More butter than this. We love you.

For anyone who doesn't know me, I'm Josh, Walter's grandson. Most of you knew him longer than I did. Some of you farmed next to him for fifty years. So I'll just tell you about the Walter I knew.

Grandpa got up at 4:45 every morning of his life, including the morning after his retirement party. He'd drive into town and have coffee at the co-op with the same five or six guys. They'd talk about rain, wheat prices, and whose fault it was. I tagged along every summer from the time I was eight. I learned more sitting at that table, pretending to drink coffee, than I learned in most of high school.

He carried a pocketknife his whole life. When I turned twelve, he gave me one just like it and said, "A man should be able to fix a little thing without calling somebody." I still have it. It's in my pocket right now.

He wasn't soft, exactly. He was steady. During the drought years he'd stand at the edge of the field with his hands in his pockets, look at the sky, and say, "Well, it'll rain or it won't." Then he'd go back to work. That was his faith. Do your part and trust the rest.

The last time we drove out to the north section together, he made me stop the truck and we just sat there with the windows down. He didn't say much. He didn't have to. He was showing me something he loved.

Grandpa, the guys at the co-op saved your seat this week. Nobody's sat in it. Thank you for letting me sit next to you all those mornings. I'll carry the knife. I'll try to fix the little things.

I met Marcus on move-in day freshman year. He was carrying a mini fridge up four flights of stairs by himself because the elevator was broken, and when I offered to help he said, "Grab the other end, we're roommates now." He was wrong. He was in 412 and I was in 414. We were roommates for the next three years anyway.

The story everybody asks me to tell is the van. The summer after junior year, Marcus bought a 1991 Dodge conversion van for six hundred dollars and announced we were driving to the Grand Canyon. Five of us. No air conditioning. The van broke down outside Tucumcari, New Mexico, in July.

Most people would've been miserable. Marcus walked to a gas station, came back with a bag of ice, a watermelon, and a mechanic named Earl who he'd somehow already become friends with. We spent two days in Tucumcari waiting on a part. Earl's family had us over for dinner both nights. By the time we left, Marcus had Earl's phone number, and he called him every Christmas for the next fifteen years.

That was Marcus. Things went wrong around him all the time, and he turned every one of them into a story and a new friend.

He was the first person I called when I got engaged, and when my dad got sick, and when I got the job, and when I lost it. He always picked up. He always asked, "Okay, what do we need?"

We never did make it to the Grand Canyon on that trip. We made it there last year, finally, two middle-aged guys in a rental car with working air. He stood at the rim for a long time and said, "Worth the wait."

You were, buddy. Every bit of it. I'll grab the other end from here.

Tom and I were married for forty-one years. I've been trying all week to figure out how to fit that into five minutes, and I can't. So I'm going to tell you about the notes.

Tom got up before me every day of our marriage. And every day, he left a note on the coffee maker. Usually it was nothing. "Gone to the hardware store." "Rain later, take the umbrella." "Cardinals won." Sometimes it was a drawing of a fish, because he'd gone fishing, and he could not draw a fish to save his life. They all looked like potatoes.

I kept them. I didn't plan to. I just put the first few in a shoebox, and then it was a habit, and now there are four shoeboxes in our closet. Forty-one years of a man telling me where he was and what he was thinking, so I'd never wake up wondering.

That was Tom's whole way of loving. Steady. Small. Every day. He wasn't flashy. He proposed in a Pizza Hut. He coached Little League for twelve years, long after our own kids stopped playing, because he said somebody had to teach those boys to lose with their heads up.

When he got sick, the notes kept coming. The handwriting got shakier. The last one, about two weeks ago, said: "Sleep in. I've got the coffee. Love you, T." He didn't have the coffee. He hadn't been able to make it in months. But he wanted me to know he was still thinking about the morning.

I'm not ready for the mornings without you, Tom. But I have four shoeboxes of you, and I'll read every one.

Gone ahead. See you later. Love you too.

I'm Ana, Rosa's niece. I'll be brief, because Tía Rosa always said the best part of any party is the food, not the speeches.

Tía Rosa's front porch had four chairs and never enough of them. In the evenings, people just showed up. Neighbors, cousins, kids from down the street. She'd bring out lemonade in the summer and coffee in the winter, and she'd ask everybody the same question: "And how is your mother?" She remembered every mother's name.

I sat on that porch through every hard thing in my life. A bad breakup at seventeen. A failed class. My first job I hated. She never gave advice unless you asked for it. She just patted the chair next to her and let you sit until you felt better. Usually it worked.

She raised three kids, buried a husband, worked the cafeteria line at Lincoln Elementary for twenty years, and still had room on that porch for anyone who needed it.

Tía, we'll keep the chairs out. Thank you for always saving us a seat.

Uncle Gene would want me to start with a joke, so here's his favorite. Why don't skeletons fight each other? They don't have the guts. He told that joke at every Thanksgiving for thirty years. Nobody ever laughed. He laughed every single time, which made all of us laugh, which was the point.

Gene had opinions. Strong ones. About the right way to load a dishwasher, the correct temperature for a grill, and which bowling alley in town had the most honest lanes. He bowled every Tuesday night for forty-four years with a team called the Gutter Kings, and they never once finished above fifth place. He bought the team shirts anyway. Bright orange. He wore his to my high school graduation.

He also could not keep a secret. If you told Gene about a surprise party, the guest of honor knew by dinner.

But here's the thing about Gene. When my parents split up and I was eleven and angry at everybody, he picked me up every Saturday morning for a year. We didn't talk about it. We went to the hardware store and the bowling alley and the diner, and he told me terrible jokes until I laughed despite myself. He was making sure I had one thing every week I could count on.

That was Gene. Loud, a little ridiculous, wrong about the dishwasher, and right about the things that mattered.

Uncle Gene, the Gutter Kings are retiring your shirt. Fifth place never looked so good. We love you, and yes, we'll keep telling the skeleton joke.