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MY blog...
As the title says, welcome to my blog! This is the place to find out what's happening with PostScript as a business, but more often it's here to give you some entertainment, some knowledge, some insight on subjects I'm passionate about or, failing that, just somewhere to pass the time.
I want to update this blog regularly (workload permitting) so please come back often to read our latest posts (the latest one is always at the top). Please feel free to share them with your family and friends, comment and, if you like any of them, please hit the heart icon ♥️. Enjoy!
Celebrating a Life With Humour: When and How to Include It in a Eulogy
When I sit down with a family to discuss a eulogy, there's a question that comes up again and again, usually delivered in a slightly apologetic tone, as though it's somehow improper to ask. "Is it alright if we include a bit of humour? Would people think we weren't taking it seriously?" My answer is always the same: humour, used thoughtfully, is one of the most powerful tools available to a eulogy writer because writing a eulogy is rarely an easy task. I think that's because,
Oct 2612 min read
How Do You Talk to Someone Who Is Dying?
As the colder nights start to pull in and it begins to get darker earlier, it's a time of year that's bittersweet for me. I actually love it being dark at 4 PM! Winter brings so much joy, from birthdays and Halloween to Christmas with the family. Yet, it’s also the time of year I lost my parents, and I miss them the most. One regret I still carry is from when I sat with my Mum during her end-of-life care in the hospital. I spent hours holding her hand, comforting her, as did
Oct 1913 min read
What If You Have Nothing Nice to Say About the Person Who Died?
There is an assumption that when someone dies, the people left behind will have something warm, affectionate or uplifting to say about them. Eulogies are usually filled with stories of kindness, laughter, generosity and love. We talk about the wonderful parent, the devoted partner, the much-loved friend or the person who could always make everyone smile. But what happens when that simply isn't true? What If You Have Nothing Nice to Say About the Person Who Died? Being asked t
Oct 59 min read
How To Start A Conversation About Your Funeral
In the two years or so since I started PostScript Eulogies, I have written hundreds of eulogies for people who have lost someone. In that time, I have done countless video calls or sat in living rooms with grieving families, notebooks open, asking a widow or a daughter or a best friend to tell me about the person they lost, and in almost every one of those conversations, the same quiet regret soon surfaces. At some point someone will say, "I wish I'd known what she wanted" or
Sep 288 min read
How To Write A Eulogy for Foster Parents
Trust me when I say that writing a eulogy for a parent is never easy. I've done it twice for my own parents when they passed, and it was the hardest thing I've ever done. I'm sure that writing one for a foster parent would feel just as difficult and possibly even more complicated. When someone has opened their home and their life to you, perhaps during a difficult or uncertain period of your childhood, the relationship you develop can be enormously significant. A foster paren
Sep 2111 min read
How To Write a Eulogy for Someone With A Complicated Life
When I tell people I write eulogies for a living, most display a mix of surprise and confusion. However, many others often sigh with relief. They imagine (as I did when I first started PostScript) that I spend my days memorialising kindly grandparents, beloved teachers, and selfless volunteers—people whose legacies are neatly packaged in goodwill and warm memories. But the truth is, many of my clients aren’t mourning saints. They are mourning human beings, and human beings, a
Aug 2410 min read
Eulogy for an Estranged Mother
Back in May, I published a blog titled “Eulogy for an Estranged Father” (linked here if you missed it). I don't mind saying I was overwhelmed by the response. My inbox was soon filling up with messages from people who'd read it from across the UK and North America thanking me for giving voice to a grief they felt they weren’t allowed to own. It made me feel really proud that I could help them albeit virtually. The response to that piece highlighted something important to me:
Aug 1710 min read
Writing a Collaborative Eulogy: How to Involve Family and Friends in the Process
When I sit down with a new client to discuss writing a eulogy for their recently lost loved one, the first thing I see is usually a mixture of grief, love and sheer, unadulterated panic. Those emotions, including the panic, is completely understandable. In the immediate aftermath of a death, just as we're coming to terms with their loss, we are asked to perform one of the most profound linguistic tasks of our lives: to summarise an entire human existence into a ten minute spe
Aug 310 min read
Writing A Eulogy for a Friend: How to Honour Them Respectfully
Few things are more difficult than saying goodbye to someone who has been a true friend. Unlike immediate family, friends are the people we choose to spend our lives with. They become our confidants, our partners in adventure, our shoulder to cry on, and often the keepers of memories, even embarrassing ones, that no one else shares. When you're asked to write and deliver a eulogy for a friend, it can feel like both an enormous privilege and an overwhelming responsibility. Nat
Jul 2710 min read
How to Support Someone Writing a Eulogy
When someone is asked to write a eulogy, it is often seen as a privilege. It is a chance to honour a loved one, celebrate their life and speak on behalf of family and friends during one of life's most emotional moments. However, what many people don't see is the enormous pressure that comes with that responsibility. As a professional eulogy writer, I've worked with countless individuals who have been entrusted with delivering a final tribute. Almost every one of them has said
Jul 139 min read
Eulogy Writing for Children: How to Explain Loss in a Tribute
Losing someone we love is one of life's most difficult experiences, but when children are involved, it can feel even harder. Alongside managing our own grief, we often find ourselves asking another challenging question: How do we explain this to them? As a professional eulogy writer, I've worked with many families who want to create a tribute that not only honours the person who has died, but also helps the youngest members of the family understand what has happened. Children
Jul 68 min read
How to Honour Someone Who Didn’t Like Fuss
I’ll never forget the call from a lady in Cheltenham earlier this year. Her mother, a former librarian named Joan, had passed away peacefully at ninety-two. “The problem is”, the daughter whispered, as if sharing a state secret, “Mum would loathe a traditional funeral. She hated being the centre of attention. She’d go bright red if you even sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to her”. This is a dilemma I encounter more often than you might think. As a professional eulogy writer, I spend m
Jun 88 min read
Eulogy for an Estranged Father
There are few eulogies harder to write than one for a parent from whom you were estranged. When a father dies after years of distance, silence, conflict, or emotional separation, grief rarely arrives in a neat or recognisable form. Instead, it can bring confusion, guilt, anger, relief, sadness, regret, numbness, or all of them at once. People often assume that death magically repairs fractured relationships. It does not. The death of an estranged father does not suddenly eras
May 267 min read
What To Say In A Eulogy When The Deceased Doesn't Want One
At the time of publication, I’ve been writing eulogies professionally for nearly two years. Most of my clients come to me for many of the same reasons: either they are overcome by grief, crippled by the fear of public speaking, or simply too close to the words to shape them into something coherent, so I help them, and it's an honour to do so. But now and again, I receive a call with a different kind of anxiety lurking beneath the surface. “The thing is”, the caller will whisp
May 1110 min read
How to Celebrate a Life Instead of Mourning a Death
Despite what some people might think, there is no right way to grieve. For some, loss arrives as silence. For others, it comes as tears, anger, numbness, or an ache that lingers in the ordinary moments of the day like an empty chair at the dining table, a phone number still saved in your contacts or a birthday that suddenly feels heavier than it once did. Mourning is deeply personal, and no one should ever feel pressured to “move on” or to replace sadness with forced positivi
May 47 min read
How to Talk About Dementia or Long Illness in a Eulogy
When you lose someone after a long illness, especially one like Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia, grief rarely arrives in a simple, straight line. By the time the funeral takes place, many family members have been mourning for years. They’ve mourned the gradual loss of memories, of recognition, of the person’s distinctive personality. This complicated sorrow makes writing a eulogy uniquely difficult. How do you honour someone whose final years were defined by confusion
Apr 138 min read
Eulogies for Unspoken Goodbyes: Writing After a Sudden Loss
There is a particular kind of silence that follows a sudden loss. It is not the quiet that comes after a long illness, where grief arrives slowly, rehearsed in hospital corridors and late-night conversations. Instead, it is abrupt and disorienting; a sentence cut off mid-thought. One moment, life continues as expected; the next, everything has changed. Within that shock often sits a heavy, persistent feeling that you didn’t get to say goodbye. Photo by Junseong Lee on Unsplas
Mar 247 min read
Tips for Delivering a Eulogy Confidently
There are few tasks in life as daunting, or as profound, as delivering a eulogy. Standing before a sea of grieving faces, often including your own family, to encapsulate a lifetime of love, memories and personality into just a few minutes of speaking is a monumental ask of anyone. It is an honour, certainly, but it is also an immense pressure and something I always keep in mind when writing a eulogy for my clients. If you have been asked to speak and your immediate reaction w
Mar 169 min read
Eulogy Ideas for Non-Religious Funerals
At least here in the United Kingdom, the way we say goodbye is changing. For centuries, funerals were closely tied to religious traditions, most commonly within the framework of the Church of England or other Christian denominations. As such, the format of a funeral has historically been fairly predictable; a religious service in a church or crematorium chapel, filled with hymns, prayers and the comforting but prescribed words of the clergy. However, as the nation’s relations
Mar 99 min read
Is It Wrong to Refuse to Give a Eulogy?
Many of us have been there at some point.. The question lands in your inbox, a notification pops up on your phone, or a relative whispers it to you at a tense family gathering following the loss of a loved one... "We'd like you to speak at the funeral". Being asked to deliver a eulogy is often framed as an honour, a testament to your close relationship with the deceased or your eloquence under pressure. But for the person receiving the request, it can feel less like an honour
Feb 239 min read
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