Why Write Your Own Eulogy?
Because you’re the one person who was there for all of it.
Writing your own eulogy sounds a bit strange.
We know.
There is something undeniably odd about sitting at the kitchen table, perfectly alive, contemplating what somebody might say about you when you’re dead.
But once you get past that bit, the idea starts to make rather a lot of sense.
Because one day, somebody may have to tell the story of your life.
And nobody else knows quite the same version of it that you do.
Nobody Knows Your Whole Story
Think about the people in your life.
Your parents knew one version of you.
Your siblings know another.
Your childhood friends remember things your partner never saw.
Your partner knows things your colleagues certainly don’t need to.
Your children may know surprisingly little about the person you were before they existed.
Newer friends might have no idea what happened during the first forty years.
Old friends might barely recognise the life you have now.
Everybody has pieces.
You’re the only person who has been there for the whole thing.
That doesn’t mean your version is the definitive truth.
Memory is unreliable. Perspective is subjective. You have blind spots just like everybody else.
But your version belongs in the collection.
And if you don’t record it, it’s the one version guaranteed to disappear with you.
Because Eulogies Are Usually Written at a Terrible Time
Imagine somebody you love has just died.
There are people to tell.
Arrangements to make.
Forms.
Phone calls.
Decisions.
Possibly a funeral director asking questions you hadn’t considered.
Everybody is upset, exhausted, distracted, or some combination of the three.
And then:
Could you write the eulogy?
Excellent.
Now please summarise an entire human being.
By Thursday.
It’s hardly ideal working conditions.
Leaving something behind doesn’t remove the difficulty of losing you.
But it can remove the need to reconstruct your life from memory at exactly the moment when remembering anything coherently may be difficult.
Because the Important Things Aren’t Always the Obvious Things
If somebody had to write your eulogy tomorrow, what information could they easily find?
Your date of birth.
Where you lived.
Who you married.
Your children.
Your jobs.
Your qualifications.
Perhaps some achievements.
Useful.
But is that you?
What about the friend who changed your life but whom your family barely knows?
The thing you did every Sunday for twenty years?
The completely ordinary holiday that became one of your happiest memories?
The cause you quietly cared about?
The job that looks important on paper but meant very little to you?
The six-month job nobody remembers that changed the direction of your life?
The thing you’re proudest of that wouldn’t appear on any official record?
Lives aren’t necessarily shaped by the things that are easiest to document.
Because the Small Stuff Disappears
Big events tend to survive.
Weddings.
Births.
Deaths.
Moves.
Jobs.
Illnesses.
Achievements.
But people are often remembered through much smaller things.
The mug you always used.
The ridiculous phrase you said constantly.
The way you answered the phone.
Your unnecessarily strong opinion about how towels should be folded.
The meal you cooked when somebody needed looking after.
The song you always turned up.
The fact that you could never walk past a dog without saying hello.
The chair everyone knew was yours.
The story you’ve told so many times everybody complains when you start telling it again.
Until one day, they’d give almost anything to hear it once more.
The ordinary details can feel too insignificant to record while we’re alive.
After somebody dies, they often aren’t insignificant at all.
Because Family Stories Are Not Reliable
This isn’t necessarily a criticism.
It’s just what happens.
Stories get told.
Then retold.
Details change.
Two incidents merge into one.
The year changes.
The location changes.
Somebody who wasn’t there somehow appears in the story.
Eventually, everybody is completely certain that the Christmas-tree incident happened in 1998.
It was 2003, and it wasn’t even Christmas.
Your File gives you an opportunity to put your version on the record.
Future generations may continue telling it incorrectly anyway.
But at least you tried.
Because You Know What Mattered to You
Other people can see what you did.
They can’t always know why it mattered.
Perhaps the impressive career achievement everyone expects to hear about barely registers for you.
Perhaps something tiny changed your life.
Perhaps you spent years doing unpaid work nobody thinks to call work.
Perhaps your greatest source of pride isn’t an achievement at all.
Perhaps something everybody assumes was important really wasn’t.
Perhaps the thing that gave your life meaning would never occur to anyone writing your eulogy.
You get to say:
This mattered.
And:
That really didn’t.
Both are useful.
So, Why Write Your Own Eulogy?
Maybe you shouldn’t.
Maybe you want the people who love you to write it.
That’s completely valid.
In fact, that’s why My Eulogy File doesn’t require you to write one at all.
The more useful question might be:
Why contribute to your own eulogy?
Because you know things they don’t.
Because you remember things they won’t.
Because some people deserve to be mentioned.
Because some things deserve to remain private.
Because the small stuff matters.
Because your life was more complicated than the official record suggests.
Because your version belongs alongside everyone else’s.
Because somebody may one day be very grateful that you did some of the thinking for them.
And because if they’re going to talk about you when you’re not there to correct them…
you might as well leave notes.