I wrote the eulogy for my father, who was physically abusive for much of his life and emotionally abusive for almost all of it. Still he had his moments, and it was those moments I focused on--with a little wry humor. Things like he was happiest taking the very longest way possible. It made my sisters laugh, because of course we always wanted to get out of the car as quickly as we could and he hated driving on the highway! But it wasn't mean, it was more like a quirk.

Poetry also helps pad things out. I chose some lines from William Carlos Williams about being released from suffering (my father had a long illness). Afterward, people came up to me to tell me just how perfect the eulogy was, even those who knew him well, good and bad.

I think it's a common one--finally letting everybody know just how shitty your parent was when you can finally cut through the thicket of their deceit.

Think of it as a fantasy.

Like sexual fantasies, revenge-eulogy fantasies are a normal healthy part of life, a coping mechanism, and can be highly enjoyable.

But in almost every case it's best to leave it as a fantasy.

Editors Your choice of letters convey a slant toward polite decorum in a eulogy. I do agree with polite decorum in a eulogy. However, I am not quite convinced that you 'get it' about people who did not have 'Fred Rogers' for a father and "Mary Poppins' for a mother and the forbearance and discipline these grown children must exercise to convey a dignified attitude when these abusers are deceased.

Waena

Some people are simply incapable of remorse. Having the balls to tell the LW's friend's father off to his face may have no effect at all. Some people are not wired to accept their faults since they don't have any. Rather, they vehemently think everything that goes wrong is someone else's fault and vigorously convince others of this.

Writing a eulogy in advance

Some find it distateful to write a eulogy in advance. I understand. In the normal world I would agree completely and utterly. I took about a year to write my mother's eulogy in advance so that it would include many details of her early life which I did not know until the last year of her life. At the end, although I am an only child, I was not selected to give the eulogy however. I had a lifetime to suffer her psychopathic destructiveness/ malignancy and I would have presented as fair a picture as possible as well as what I hoped would be an educational portion to a small rural community. My eulogy , had I given it, would have included more than my aunt's comment about her bad temper, but the negative aspects would have been expressed with good taste. I offered parts of my eulogy to the people who selected themselves to give the eulogy, thereby they had organized, factual ,biographical information about her early life. In a complicated or accomplished person's life, it is practical to write a eulogy in advance because upon death there are many other details to think of.

I believe journalists of news organizations already compose waiting-eulogies-on-file for important dignitaries, as distasteful as it may seem . It is a mini-biography of facts.

I do not go around composing eulogies about other people before their death, by the way. I am a boring conventional person who was born into an unconventional life-path.

Interrobang Thanks for the corroboration of the scene in the outhouse by Judi Densch and the name of the movie, 'The Shipping News.' and the movie site URL http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120824/ . I should rent the movie just to see that scene again.

Andy F I would love to agree with you.( "A lot of kids think their parents are a lot worse than they really are" , you said. )

Paradoxical praise I liked this idea.

My own transition I'm contemplating a flowing, lyrical Hawaiin spiritual ritual ceremony over my body, a ceremony the living will enjoy and because of the special individual who would do the ceremony - providing she outlives me. I am 59 and have no known illness. We're about the same age. Then I would love someone to host a backyard garden picnic and have an informal get together. On the other side, in the afterlife, it has already been agreed which departed loved one will meet me in the forward journey. I don't expect anyone to eulogize me on earth since my phantasmagoria bizarre persecuted life was lived invisibly in the twilight zone.

_______________

The voices of many writers on this topic of eulogizing, or not eulogizing, the departed have stayed with me: They were touching and thoughtful and experienced. Some were pain-filled with lifelong burdens the writer had courageously managed to survive. I enjoyed the ones w humor. Peace to Each and All.

Right at the End

“To a man who lived wrong but died right,”

that’s the epitaph.

1865 to1940

All those years, and that’s the very best

that could be said on William R. Preston’s behalf.

Mary Preston left a better taste:

“A good girl - A good woman

A good wife - And a good mother”

1867 to 1930

and Mary couldn’t do nothin’ bad the whole time.

Carved in granite: The essence of their lives.

Words penned by a son, a daughter, a friend, or Bill?

And we,

we may only construe:

Bill hit his kids?

Neighbors shook their heads?

Drink was involved?

She tried to save him?

Her sister tried to save her?

The kids were long gone

and the sonbitch kept hitting and drinking?

The hard life killed her?

A decade later, Bill,

with few breaths left in him,

looked at the pastor and said,

“I believe?”

He was a wonderful person. Underneath his gruff exterior, he had a heart of gold. There was no sacrifice he wouldn't make for his family.

He used to say, "x", but you know what, his children listened, and said "y", and if you step back from how *you* feel about the issue, you realize that fathers can inspire their children not only to follow in their footsteps, but to really decide what they believe.

The LW's problem is not with the deceased, it is with himself (or herself). If you've gotten over how much you once hated his points of view, you can value them, even though you disagree. Without him, what *would* you believe?

The point of a eulogy is to bring the dead person back to life, and make the hearers who knew him or her recall the ways they connected to the deceased. I once gave (through my tears) a eulogy that left almost all my hearers in tears and laughter, remembering the special qualities of the deceased. To this day, I think it's the best speech I will ever give in my life.