PostScript Eulogies

In the 80+ blogs I've written and published (so far) on my website, there are few questions more profound, or more revealing, than this one: what makes a life well lived? It is a question philosophers have wrestled with for centuries, families quietly ponder at funeral services and, as a professional eulogy writer, one I encounter regularly in summarising some of life’s most tender moments. When someone dies, those left behind are often faced with a blank page and an overwhelming task. After...

When we ask what makes us sentimental, I think what we are really asking is what makes us human.

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, forgetfulness,...