How to Write a Eulogy for a Friend

My name is YOUR NAME and NAME was my friend for HOW LONG.

To this family he/she was THE FAMILY’S VERSION. To us he/she was YOUR VERSION.

ONE STORY the family probably has not heard, and would be glad to hear.

That was NAME. THE TRAIT, for NUMBER years, without needing to be asked.

To FAMILY MEMBERS BY NAME: one sentence directly to them.

CLOSING LINE.

My name is Tom and Rachel was my friend for twenty-three years.

To this family she was a daughter and a sister. To the six of us at the back she was the one who organised everything and complained about organising everything.

In 2014 our friend Sean’s flat flooded two days before Christmas. Rachel made a spreadsheet. There were columns. By the second evening she had rehoused him, borrowed a van, found a dehumidifier from someone she had met once, and allocated each of us a task with a deadline. She was, and I want to be accurate here, absolutely unbearable about it. She was also the only reason he had somewhere to sleep that week. Both of those things were completely true at the same time, which is the most Rachel sentence I can give you.

That was Rachel. She turned up with a plan, for twenty-three years, whether or not anyone had asked for one.

To Margaret and to Paul: she talked about you constantly, and she was proud of you in a way she would have denied if you had put it to her.

Thanks for the spreadsheet, Rach. We will try to keep it updated.