Observer’s Guide to Grief: Eulogy-Writing

“You will spend around fifty hours
Writing a five-minute eulogy
Including stories you wish you could forget
That wouldn’t help anyone else if you told them
And probably wouldn’t help you.
You will be overcome with anger
At your mistakes, and theirs
And when you think you’ve got it under control
It will burst its banks in a mighty flood
Of dirt-grey water.
You will watch that guy in that movie
Reading “Stop all the clocks” through his tears
And you’ll wonder if your voice will crack like that
When you stand up there in your funeral blues
Afraid that it will, and it won’t.
It will all be okay
Whatever you say
So even if it’s just one sentence,
Find the Love,
And say it.”
Excerpts from “The Observer’s Guide to Grief” by Matt Saunders
You may wish to read the Eulogy I wrote for my mother.
Alternatively you can go Back to The Observer’s Guide to Grief: Day One (which explains that the ‘book’ this is an excerpt from doesn’t exist),
or Forward to The Observer’s Guide to Grief: The Funeral.
