Speaking at a Funeral

Somebody asked you, or you offered, and now there is a page to write and a room to stand up in. You want to do it properly. You are also lying awake imagining your voice going, or forgetting how to read, or standing there unable to speak while a church full of people waits.

Two difficult things are happening at once: public speaking, which frightens most people, and grief, which has taken your concentration and your composure. It is reasonable to find this hard.

Write it for one person

A eulogy that tries to summarize a whole life gets long and strangely flat. The ones people remember are specific.

So pick three or four things: one story that shows who they were, one thing they said that everyone in the room will recognize, one small ordinary detail, and one sentence about what they meant to you.

Write it the way you talk. Read it out loud as you go, which is the only way to find the sentences you cannot say.

Keep it short. Three to five minutes is plenty, and in a hard room short is kinder to everyone, including you.

Make the page easy to read

This part matters more than people expect, because grief and adrenaline make reading harder than usual.

Large print, double spaced, one side of several pages rather than tiny text. Do not staple them. Number the pages in case they go out of order. Mark where to pause with a slash.

Print two copies, give one to somebody else, and have it on paper rather than on a phone that can lock or run out of battery.

Practice until it is boring

Read it out loud, standing up, at least five or six times, including once to a person. The first two readings will probably undo you, and that is the point. The crying tends to move to the rehearsals if you let it, which leaves you steadier on the day.

Mark the two or three lines that break you every time and consider rewriting them slightly shorter or plainer. The feeling stays and the sentence becomes sayable.

Plan for crying, because it is likely

The fear is almost always about losing control in front of people. So decide in advance what you will do, and then it is not a catastrophe but a plan.

Stop. Put a hand on the lectern. Look down at the page. Breathe out slowly. Count three seconds. Drink the water you put there beforehand. Then carry on.

Say the line if you need to: give me a moment. Nobody in that room will think anything other than that you loved them, and most of them are crying as well. Crying at a funeral is not a failure of composure, it is the correct response to the situation.

Have a hand-off ready

Ask one person in advance to be your backup, with a copy in their pocket, and agree the signal: if I nod at you, come and finish it.

Knowing there is an exit is usually what makes the exit unnecessary. People who have a backup almost always get through it themselves.

Practical things that help on the day

Water on the lectern. Something to hold. Tissues in your pocket, not your bag. Flat shoes. Being near the front so the walk is short. Someone sitting where you can see them.

Pick one friendly face in the middle distance and talk to them rather than scanning the room, which is what tips people over. Looking at a grieving relative's face mid-sentence is the most common cause of losing it.

Slow down more than feels natural. Nerves make everyone speed up, and the slowing is what keeps your voice steady.

Be careful with alcohol and medication. A drink to steady yourself tends to loosen the tears rather than hold them, and anything new on the day is a gamble. If you take something prescribed, a conversation with your doctor beforehand is better than borrowing from a friend.

Afterward, expect a crash

People describe feeling oddly flat or exhausted once they sit down, and sometimes tearful hours later when it is over. You have been holding a great deal together to do a job.

Let somebody look after you for the rest of the day. The performance part is done, and the grief is still there underneath it, which is usually what arrives next.

If you cannot do it, say so

Being asked is an honor and it is not an obligation. If you know it will be beyond you, tell the family early so they can ask someone else, and offer something you can manage instead: writing it for another person to read, choosing the music, reading one short poem rather than speaking about them.

Declining is not letting anyone down. Agreeing and then being unable to is harder for everybody, including you.

When to get help

Please talk to your doctor or a therapist if the dread of speaking in public is affecting much more of your life than this one occasion, since social anxiety responds well to treatment. And if the grief itself is not easing after months, if you are not sleeping, or if you are drinking more to get through the evenings, that is worth taking to a professional rather than waiting it out. If you have had thoughts of not wanting to be here, please tell someone today. In the US you can call or text 988 at any time.