Diary of a eulogist

When you speak for the dead, sometimes you’re led to sing

Scattered on the table in the middle of a circle of chairs are several photographs. One is a sepia picture of a little boy held by his mother, a woman who could be Joan Crawford’s twin. Another is a large portrait of a young man, barely 18, in a military uniform. There is a wedding photo of a young couple feeding each other cake, and a family photo, their infant swaddled in pink. These images are some of the detritus of life; lives that are now over.

When you die, it’s my job to collect stories, to bring you back to life one last time. No single story can completely describe who you are. What I seek is the eternal in the subjective, fragments of your life that also suggest the whole of who you were.

Crafting a memorial service is one of the most difficult and beautiful parts of my job. Usually, I try to disappear, extending my hand only to dot an I or cross a T. Sometimes I’m up all night, wrestling with the deceased.

Often it feels like words come to me — through me — in a way I can't explain.  Recently I lead a service for a woman who committed suicide. I took a risk and sang as part of the eulogy some lyrics that I couldn’t shake. Turns out, the deceased used to sing that very song to her best friend. I was not told this in advance. I just listened deeply. I was moved to sing.

The woman who committed suicide after years of struggling with mental illness would not have wanted to be defined only by the way she died. She was also diligent, a hard worker, blunt, loving, and compassionate. As I listened to her family, one story stood out to me that seemed to slip past the family and under the door.  Once, the deceased and her sister found a bird a cat had tortured. Its wings were broken. Its feathers were missing, ripped out in chunks. It was barely alive. Seeing this once-beautiful bird struggling for life broke their hearts. It was the deceased’s sister who told me this story. She couldn’t look at the bird—she had to turn away. Her sister — the hero of my eulogy — asked for a bucket of water. In an act of compassion of which very few of us are capable, the deceased dipped the bird beneath the surface of the water and held it there until it drowned.
This story created an opportunity for forgiveness. It held the suffering and the strength. A single story from her life offered healing in a way that scripture could not. The joy of our lives is richer when the pain is not neglected. We all walk away renewed, reminded that this life is worth living.

Your family, your friends, your colleagues and caregivers bring me the artifacts of your life. Sitting together in a house of worship or in someone’s home, I ask the questions and try to shape the conversation. We sift through the details of you, your life. I want to discover how and what you loved. We don’t focus on the why of your death; we gather to discuss how your life was lived. Death is the ending of your physical life among those whom you love and love you. It’s also the beginning of a new story: the meaning of these lives without you in it. It’s your life, your death, and the question of what happens next that unites us, albeit for a short time.

From memory and documents, through dates and stories, we sit and sculpt a version of you. The questions that drive these meetings are often chronological. Lives are hung on facts: dates of birth and graduation, of marriage and divorce, of enlistment and discharge.  We concern ourselves with location and position: of schools, homes, hospitals, of degrees earned, jobs and memberships held, religious institutions attended. Facts add scenery and setting, props and opportunity. Somewhere between is the story of a life.

“What stories were important to her?” I’ll ask. “Did she have a favorite author, poet, or film? What stories did she tell over and over — about herself, about others?” Because you are gone, your story becomes how they tell it. And because each life lived is an example of how we make sense of the human condition, your story becomes ours.

Writing a eulogy for someone I have never met is not as difficult as it may seem.  First, I fall in love with humanity. Then, I fall in love with those who loved the deceased. Finally, I have to fall in love with the one who is gone. After my heart is cracked open for those involved, I then have an opportunity to meet the dead in the thick of that love, even though our earthly paths did not cross. Knowing the deceased really only adds one more story to the mix, the personal impact of their earthly life on mine. 

Death is an opportunity for the truth. People feel free to tell stories once a loved one is gone, that they did not have the courage or insight to tell when a loved one was alive. Sometimes I’m told that the deceased was an alcoholic, was abusive, or simply said things that hurt. I hold those truths along with the happy stories, from the people you impacted the most. When I speak at the memorial, I hope to craft my words from the tension and the harmony between.

I paint with the stories of the living to hold up a picture of the dead. A eulogy is meant to praise. It is a final act of gratitude. That gratitude expressed in the context of a life’s struggle allows us to learn about our own lives by hearing about someone else’s. In hearing your stories, they become ours.