How to Write an Obituary

What is an obituary, and what is it for?

An obituary is a public notice that a person has died. It does three things at once: it announces the death, it honors the life with a brief portrait, and it gives readers the practical information they need — the service, the visitation, and where to send memorial gifts. It is not the same as writing a eulogy, which is spoken aloud at the service; an obituary is written, published, and meant to reach people who may not attend.

Writing one is among the after-death tasks that fall to families, part of the end-of-life period that public guides describe 1Ref 1National Institute on Aging (NIH) (2022).End of Life.An authoritative consumer entry point for end-of-life care topics, including the after-death tasks and decisions that families face.. It usually falls to a spouse, a child, or a close friend, often within a day or two of the death so it can run before the service. Do not let the word obituary intimidate you. At heart it is a short, true account of a life, written so that the people who knew the person recognize them in it.

What to include in an obituary

An obituary has a handful of standard elements, and you can use as many or as few as fit the person and the budget. Most begin with the announcement, move through the life, list the family, and end with the service details and where to give in the person's memory.

• The announcement. Full name, including a nickname or maiden name people knew them by; age; and the date and place of death. Stating a cause is optional and entirely your choice.
• The life. Where and when they were born, and the shape of the life between — family, education, work, military or community service, faith, and the passions and quirks that made them themselves.
• Those who survive, and those who went before. Immediate family who survive the person, and sometimes those who preceded them in death. Decide as a family whom to name.
• The service. Date, time, and place of the funeral, memorial, or visitation, and whether it is public or private.
• Memorial gifts. A charity or fund the family suggests in lieu of flowers, if you wish.
• A closing line. A sentence, a piece of scripture, a line of a poem, or the person's own favorite saying.

None of these is mandatory. A three-line notice with a name, a date, and a service time is a complete obituary.

How to start when the words will not come

Start by gathering facts, not by trying to write beautifully. Collect the dates, places, names, and milestones on one page; call two or three relatives and ask what they remember; and jot down small, specific moments — the way he made coffee, the songs she sang badly, the thing they always said. Details like these carry a person better than a résumé of accomplishments.

Then write a plain first draft and fix it later. The person writing the obituary is very often the same person who provided months of care, and caregiving burden tends to climb as the illness advances 2Ref 2Peer-reviewed study (see article) (2023).Comparison of the Burden Evolution of the Family Caregivers for Patients With Cancer and Nononcological Diseases Who Need Palliative Care.Family caregiver burden in palliative care rises as the patient approaches death, so the person writing the obituary is often depleted by long caregiving., so you may be doing this while exhausted and grief-struck. Share the task. Ask siblings and friends to send a memory or a paragraph; let someone else check the dates. An obituary written by several hands is usually truer than one carried alone.

Newspaper, funeral home, and online notices

Where an obituary appears shapes both its cost and its length. Newspapers typically charge for paid death notices by the line, the word, or the column inch, and a photograph adds to the price, so a long tribute in a large paper can become expensive. Funeral homes usually post an obituary on their own website at no extra charge as part of their services, with no length limit.

Many families now write one fuller version for the funeral home's site and a shorter, trimmed version for a newspaper. Online versions have a quiet advantage: you can correct a name, add a detail, or update service information after it is posted.

A short template you can adapt

If a blank page is the obstacle, a skeleton helps. Fill in the brackets, then loosen the language until it sounds like your family rather than a form. This is a starting point, not a rule; move the pieces around as the person deserves.

[Full name], [age], of [city], died on [date] at [place]. [He or she] was born on [date] in [place] to [parents].

[A paragraph on the life: work, service, family, and the passions and small, true details that made them who they were.]

[Name] is survived by [family members], and was preceded in death by [names]. [He or she] is remembered for [a line that captures them].

A [service or celebration of life] will be held on [date] at [time] at [place]. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests gifts to [charity or fund].

Read it aloud once it is drafted. Obituaries are meant to be read by grieving people, and the ear catches what the eye misses.

Etiquette, accuracy, and safety

A few judgment calls come up in almost every obituary, and there are gentle, common conventions for each. Naming a cause of death is optional; families often name it when it might help others, and omit it when it is private. Whom to list among survivors can be delicate in blended or estranged families — decide together, and err toward inclusion where you can.

Accuracy matters because the obituary becomes part of the record and sits alongside the after-death checklist of accounts and notifications the estate will handle. Check every date, spelling, and relationship against a reliable source before it runs. There is also a quiet safety point: a published obituary is public, so many families leave out the exact birth date, the mother's maiden name, and the home address, since those are the details identity thieves use. You will need certified documents for the estate regardless; getting death certificate copies is a separate task the funeral home helps you begin.

Give yourself grace

An obituary does not have to be perfect, and it does not have to be complete. You are writing about a whole person in a few hundred words, days after losing them; something true and kind is more than enough, and you can add to an online version later. Many people find that writing it, hard as it is, becomes one of the first real acts of mourning.

That instinct is sound. Support for people grieving a death has genuine benefits for working through the loss, even where the evidence varies in strength 3Ref 3Peer-reviewed systematic review (see article) (2020).The Impacts and Effectiveness of Support for People Bereaved Through Advanced Illness: A Systematic Review and Thematic Synthesis.Support for people bereaved through advanced illness has benefits for working through grief, though the quantitative evidence is of mixed quality., and putting a life into words is one small form of that work. If you are struggling to write it at all, that is worth honoring too — ask someone to draft it with you, or lean on the after-death guides that walk families through this period step by step 1Ref 1National Institute on Aging (NIH) (2022).End of Life.An authoritative consumer entry point for end-of-life care topics, including the after-death tasks and decisions that families face.. The point is not a flawless notice. The point is that the person is remembered.