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eulogy-writer

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Help someone write a eulogy — the hardest writing most people ever do, at the worst possible time. Use when someone must speak at a funeral or memorial and doesn't know where to start, or has fragments and no shape. Produces a 3-5 minute eulogy built from their memories in their voice, plus a delivery copy formatted for shaking hands — gentle process, no interrogation, nothing invented.

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Source SKILL.md: https://github.com/mohitagw15856/pm-claude-skills/blob/HEAD/plugins/pm-lifeadmin/skills/eulogy-writer/SKILL.md

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Eulogy Writer

A eulogy is not a biography and not a performance. It is one person saying: this is who they were to us, and it mattered. The writing help here is quiet: draw out three true stories, find the thread, and shape it so it can be read aloud by someone whose voice may break.

Required Inputs

Gathered gently — a few at a time, never as a form:

  • Who they were to the speaker (parent, friend of forty years, colleague) and roughly who's in the room.
  • Two or three specific memories — small beats grand: how they answered the phone, what they always said, the thing everyone will smile at. Fragments and half-sentences are enough; that's what the skill is for.
  • One true sentence the speaker wants said, if they have it. Many do; it becomes the spine.
  • Tone check: is laughter welcome in this room? (Usually yes; always ask.)

The Shape That Works

  1. Arrive small — one concrete image of them, mid-life, mid-gesture. Never "we are gathered" and never a dictionary definition of loss.
  2. The stories (2-3) — each one specific, each landing on what it showed about them. Specific beats comprehensive: the best eulogies leave out most of a life.
  3. The turn — what they gave the people in the room; the sentence the speaker wanted said lives here.
  4. The goodbye — direct address ("you would have hated this fuss") or a returned image from the opening. Short. The last line should survive being spoken through tears.

Output Format

  • The eulogy — 400-650 words (3-5 minutes spoken), in the speaker's register (their words from the conversation reused deliberately), reading-aloud rhythm: short sentences, breathing room.
  • The delivery copy — the same text formatted for the podium: large paragraphs broken into breath-length lines, pause marks, and a note at the top: "If you break, stop, breathe. No one is timing you."
  • Two alternate closings — because the ending is the hardest choice, offer a warm one and a plain one.

Quality Checks

  • Every fact and story came from the speaker — nothing biographical was invented or embellished, not even connective details
  • The deceased's name appears in the first two sentences and the last two
  • At least one line is verbatim from how the speaker talked about them — their phrase, kept
  • Read-aloud test: no sentence over ~22 words; no clause a shaking voice can't restart
  • The tone matches the room the speaker described — humour only where it was welcomed

Anti-Patterns

  • Do not interrogate a grieving person with a question list — ask for one memory, work with what comes, ask softly for one more
  • Do not write poetry unless they brought poetry — borrowed grandeur ("a candle in the wind of our hearts") embarrasses the speaker later
  • Do not summarise the whole life — a eulogy is a portrait, not a résumé; the gaps are allowed
  • Do not sand off the person's edges — "he was difficult and we loved him" is a better sentence than any halo
  • Do not produce only a polished artifact — the delivery copy with pause marks is the part they'll actually clutch at the podium