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It\u2019s something all of us have imagined at one time or another. What would it be like to die and attend our own funeral? Who would be there? How many people would come? Will the woman who spurned our love be devastated and finally realize how great we were? Will someone you thought you were close with be surprisingly composed?<\/p>\n
And of course the thing we wonder about most is this: What will people say about me? What will people remember about my life and how I treated them? How will I be eulogized?<\/p>\n
Today we\u2019re going to take these imagined musings one step farther. We\u2019re going to write our own eulogies. It may at first blush sound a little morbid, but we all must confront our mortality from time to time. Our society does a bang up job of hiding death from our view and many of us live in a state of denial about the fact that we\u2019ll one day be pushing up daisies. But we all will. Acknowledging this fact can help us concentrate on living each day with purpose. Even if we live until we\u2019re 9o, that day will arrive faster they we can imagine. Life is short: carpe diem!<\/p>\n
Of course you can\u2019t come up with your own eulogy without knowing how to write one in general. Many of us probably don\u2019t have much or any experience in eulogy writing. So let\u2019s go over some basic guidelines for one.<\/p>\n
There are several different formats a eulogy can take, and were we writing a real eulogy, you would want to take some time to come up with memories and humorous stories to weave into your speech. But for our purposes today, we\u2019re going to keep our DIY eulogies simple and straightforward.<\/p>\n
The easiest kind of eulogy to write is a \u201cchronological eulogy.\u201d Basically your start from the beginning of the person\u2019s life, and give a run down of where they lived, their education, marriage, family, kids, career, accomplishments, and so on. Here’s how to get started:<\/p>\n
Step 1: Write an outline.<\/strong><\/p>\n Sit down and imagine that you lived until you were 90 and then passed away. Now picture what you did during your 9 decades of life. Where you lived, who you loved, how you acted. This is your life as you hope to have lived it. Jot down some \u201cmemories\u201d of yourself in answer to the following questions.<\/p>\n Step 2: Turn your outline into a eulogy.<\/strong><\/p>\n Now you\u2019re going to take all of the ideas you just jotted down and coalesce them into a finished project. Here\u2019s an easy format to follow:<\/p>\n Your eulogy doesn\u2019t have to be an endless tome. Just hit the high points of your life, the really important stuff. Here\u2019s a sample eulogy that I made up:<\/p>\n Carl Johnson was a true New Yorker. He was born in the city in 1978 and he never truly left. Although he traveled the world extensively, and lived at times in other places, he always came home to the Big Apple. He said the city was truly in his blood, and there was never any doubt about where he would retire. Carl grew up in the Bronx and showed his propensity for adventure early on when he snuck out of the house and rode the subway all over the city at the tender age of 8. Carl\u2019s parents were terrified; Carl was delighted.<\/p>\n Carl went to school at NYU and studied journalism. He wanted to be another Bob Woodward or Carl Bernstein. He worked for several smaller papers, always burning the midnight oil, always hot on the trail of the next big story. He landed his dream job when he was hired by the New York Times<\/em> to work in their Washington bureau. He loved politics. He loved getting to the bottom of the wheeling and dealing that went on behind the scenes. Most of all, he loved to uncover corruption. He was an idealist that believed that that one man could help change the government by exposing the dark things to the light. It was his work in this capacity that won him the Pulitzer prize for his story on the bribery going on in the Department of Natural Resources.<\/p>\n While Carl loved his work, he loved his family more. He married Cindy, the love of his life in 2001. They were as close and in love as any couple I\u2019ve ever met, two veritable peas in a pod. In reference to Cindy, he said to me several times, \u201cI\u2019m the luckiest guy in the world.\u201d Together he and Cindy had two beautiful children, Robert and Elizabeth. He adored those kids. No matter how busy things got at work, Carl was always there at his children\u2019s activities. Of all his life’s great accomplishments, Carl was most proud of the splendid people his children turned out to be.<\/p>\n\n
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