Below are 24 complete obituary examples you can read, copy, and adapt: short newspaper-length ones, full versions for a mother, father, spouse, sibling, grandparent, veteran, and more, plus the plain five-part pattern behind all of them, so you can write one from a blank page if none of these quite fit. All names and details in these examples are fictional. If you need words to say to someone else instead of writing an obituary yourself, see our sympathy messages for the loss of a parent.
The pattern every good obituary follows
Every obituary that works, long or short, follows roughly the same shape. Open with the facts (name, age, city, and the date of death) so the who-what-when is settled in one sentence. Move through the life in chapters, in order: where they were born, who raised them, what they did with their working life, who they built a family with. Spend at least one sentence on who they actually were, not “a loving person” but the specific way that showed up. Name the people left behind, in relationship order, including the ones who came before. Close with the practical part: the service, and where to send flowers or a donation instead. Five parts, in that order, and a good obituary does not take long to write once the facts are in front of you.
Here is that shape as a fill-in-the-blank you can build from directly:
[Full name], [age], of [city, state], died [date]. [He/She/They] was born [date or year] in [birthplace] to [parents’ names].
[He/She/They] [education, military service, or career, in one or two sentences]. [One specific, true detail: a habit, a skill, a phrase; the thing people will actually remember].
[He/She/They] is survived by [spouse]; children [names]; [number] grandchildren; and [siblings or other family]. [He/She/They] was preceded in death by [parents / spouse / sibling].
A [funeral / memorial / celebration of life] will be held [day, date, time] at [location, city]. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to [organization].
For a longer, step-by-step walkthrough of writing one from scratch (including how to open, what to do about a cause of death, and how to edit a first draft down), see our full guide to how to write an obituary.
Short obituaries
For a newspaper notice or a funeral home’s website, where length is often priced by the word or capped by the paper. One dense paragraph carrying the facts and a single true detail is usually enough.
Example: brief and traditional
Harold “Hal” Kwiatkowski, 84, of Toledo, Ohio, died March 14, 2025. He spent forty-one years as a machinist at the Jeep plant and kept every Tigers ticket stub he ever collected, in order, in a shoebox. He is survived by his wife of sixty-one years, Doris; children Michael and Patricia; seven grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren. A funeral Mass will be held Saturday, March 22, at 10 a.m. at St. Adalbert Catholic Church, Toledo, with burial at Calvary Cemetery.
Example: a working life, honored plainly
Renata Osei, 59, of Charlotte, North Carolina, died June 2, 2025. She spent thirty-four years as an ICU nurse at Carolinas Medical Center and could recall a patient’s coffee order months later, unprompted. She is survived by her husband, Kwame; sons Daniel and Jerome; and her mother, Comfort. A celebration of life will be held Saturday, June 14, at 1 p.m. at Greater Faith Baptist Church, Charlotte. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the hospital’s nursing scholarship fund.
Example: a long life, kept quiet and full
Evangelina “Vangie” Contreras, 91, of Las Cruces, New Mexico, died peacefully at home on January 9, 2025. She ran an alterations shop from her front room for forty years and never let a customer leave hungry. She was preceded in death by her husband, Rubén, and is survived by five children, fourteen grandchildren, and nine great-grandchildren. A rosary will be held Thursday, January 16, at 6 p.m. at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, with burial private, for family.
Obituary examples for a mother
A mother’s obituary usually holds two things at once: what she did with her life, and how she made the people around her feel. Both belong, in specific terms rather than general ones.
Example: a full version, plainspoken
Linda Sue Prater, 71, of Bowling Green, Kentucky, died April 18, 2025, at her home, surrounded by her family.
Linda was born September 3, 1953, in Warren County to Harold and June Prater, the third of six children. She graduated from Bowling Green High School in 1971 and went to work in the cafeteria at Cumberland Trace Elementary that fall, a job she kept, in one form or another, for thirty-eight years, eventually running the kitchen herself. Generations of Cumberland Trace students remember her by name, and she remembered most of theirs back.
Linda wrote a birthday card to each of her children and grandchildren every year, addressed and stamped a full week early, because she never trusted the mail to make a deadline she cared about. She loved a hard crossword, a full table, and being right about the weather.
She is survived by her husband of forty-nine years, Gary Prater; her children, Michelle (Prater) Combs and Todd Prater; five grandchildren; and her sister, Carol Whitmer. She was preceded in death by her parents and her brother, Dale.
A funeral service will be held Wednesday, April 23, at 11 a.m. at Rosewood Funeral Home, Bowling Green, with burial at Fairview Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, the family asks donations to the Cumberland Trace Elementary backpack food program.
Example: for a mother who died younger
Priya Nair Kessler, 45, of Somerville, Massachusetts, died September 30, 2024, after a brain aneurysm.
Priya was born in Cleveland, Ohio, to Ramesh and Sunita Nair, who had come to the United States from Kerala, India, six years earlier. She earned a doctorate in physical therapy from Boston University and spent seventeen years treating children with cerebral palsy and other mobility conditions at Boston Children’s Hospital, where she was known for turning reluctant four-year-olds’ exercises into games no one else had thought of.
At forty, unable to whistle and tired of shouting across the yard, Priya taught herself to whistle specifically so she could call her own children in the way her father once called her. It took most of a summer, and she was unbearably proud of it. For a decade she also ran an unpaid Tuesday evening group for parents of children with disabilities, because she had needed exactly that group herself as a new mother and found it didn’t yet exist.
She is survived by her husband, David Kessler; their children, Asha and Theo; her parents, Ramesh and Sunita Nair; and her brother, Arjun Nair. A memorial service will be held Saturday, October 12, at 1 p.m. at First Parish Unitarian Universalist, Somerville. In lieu of flowers, the family asks donations to Boston Children’s Hospital’s pediatric rehabilitation program.
Obituary examples for a father
The same rule holds for fathers: specific beats general. What he did for work usually matters less than what he did with his hands, his time, or his terrible jokes.
Example: a full version, plainspoken
Walter “Walt” Ferris, 83, of Billings, Montana, died November 3, 2024, at St. Vincent Healthcare.
Walt was born June 4, 1941, in Great Falls, Montana, to a ranching family, and went to work for the Northern Pacific Railway at nineteen, eventually spending thirty-six years as a conductor before retiring in 2003. He met his wife, Joan, at a Grange Hall dance in 1964, and they married eleven months later.
Walt could fix almost anything with a rubber band, a length of wire, and enough time in the garage, and he usually did, whether or not the thing in question was actually his to fix. Neighbors still stop by out of habit to ask if he’s got a minute. He also coached his daughter’s 4-H rabbit club for six years, knowing nothing about rabbits when he agreed to it and considerably more by the time he stopped.
He is survived by his wife of sixty years, Joan Ferris; his children, Kevin Ferris and Ann (Ferris) Boyer; six grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his parents and his brother, Roy.
A graveside service will be held Friday, November 8, at 1 p.m. at Yellowstone County Cemetery, Billings. The family will receive friends afterward at the Elks Lodge.
Example: a shorter full version, warm
Dwayne Okafor, 64, of Columbus, Ohio, passed away July 22, 2025.
Dwayne grew up in Columbus, the son of Nigerian immigrants who ran a small grocery on the east side, and taught shop class and coached junior varsity football at Briggs High School for thirty-one years. For eleven of those years he also kept the scorebook for a Little League team his own kids had long since aged out of, because nobody else would do it and he liked the walk to the field on summer evenings. Former students still call him “Coach O” at the grocery store, three decades on. He and Temperance raised two kids and, for a few overlapping years, most of the junior varsity roster too, who ate dinner at the Okafor table more often than not.
He is survived by his wife, Temperance Okafor; his children, Marcus and Simone Okafor; three grandchildren; his mother, Adaeze Okafor; and his brother, Chidi. He was preceded in death by his father, Emeka.
A celebration of life will be held Saturday, August 2, at 2 p.m. in the Briggs High School gymnasium, where he coached for three decades. In lieu of flowers, the family asks donations to the Briggs Athletics Booster Fund.
Obituary examples for a spouse or partner
Written by the person left behind, a spouse’s obituary can afford to be a love story as much as a record: the marriage itself is one of the chapters.
Example: decades married
Leonard “Lenny” Sabo, 79, of Erie, Pennsylvania, died February 6, 2025, at home, with his wife beside him.
Lenny spent forty-two years as a pipefitter with UA Local 108, retiring in 2009. He and Ruth Ann met at a church picnic in 1968 and married the following spring; this year would have been their fifty-sixth anniversary. Most Sunday evenings for as long as anyone can remember, Lenny turned on the kitchen radio and danced with Ruth Ann while the dishes waited, whether either of them felt like it or not. He also never missed a Friday fish fry at the Slovak club, not once in forty years.
He is survived by his wife, Ruth Ann Sabo; his children, Karen (Sabo) Yost and Michael Sabo; four grandchildren; and his sister, Dorothy Palko. He was preceded in death by his parents.
A funeral service will be held Thursday, February 13, at 10 a.m. at Sts. Peter and Paul Slovak Catholic Church, Erie, with burial at Calvary Cemetery.
Example: a husband, later in life
Marcus Dolan, 56, of Asheville, North Carolina, died May 19, 2025, following a fall at the studio where he had worked for nearly twenty years.
Marcus was a working potter who taught ceramics at the River Arts District co-op he helped found in 2006. He named nearly every plant in his house after a former coworker, so that his kitchen windowsill was, at various points, populated by a Deborah, two Freds, and a temperamental fern called Gary. He married his husband, Ben Feld, in late 2014, weeks after it became legal in North Carolina. His mugs are still in daily use in dozens of Asheville kitchens, several of them chipped and reglued more than once.
He is survived by his husband, Ben Feld; his mother, Colleen Dolan; and his brother, Sean Dolan. A celebration of his life and work will be held Sunday, June 1, at 3 p.m. at the River Arts District co-op, with students invited to bring a piece he helped them make. In lieu of flowers, the family asks donations to the co-op’s scholarship fund for young potters.
Obituary examples for a grandparent
When someone is remembered mainly as a grandparent, let the grandchildren’s version of them lead: the nicknames, the rituals, the things only they would know.
Example: a small daily ritual
Constance “Connie” Winfield, 88, of Duluth, Minnesota, passed away November 30, 2024, at Franciscan Health Center.
Connie worked as a telephone operator for Northwestern Bell before her children were born, then spent the next five decades running the household her grandchildren still call the good house. She turned the porch light on every night at dusk for fifty-three years, a habit that outlasted its original reason and simply became who she was. She also labeled every photograph in the house on the back in pencil, names and dates, so no one would ever have to guess who was in the picture.
She is survived by her children, Robert Winfield and Susan (Winfield) Larson; nine grandchildren; six great-grandchildren; and her sister, Marjorie Hahn. She was preceded in death by her husband, Donald, in 2011.
A funeral service will be held Friday, December 6, at 11 a.m. at Bethlehem Lutheran Church, Duluth, with a luncheon to follow. In lieu of flowers, the family asks donations to Franciscan Health Center’s memory care unit.
Example: a long career, remembered by name
Salvatore “Sal” Bianchi, 93, of Providence, Rhode Island, died August 15, 2024.
Sal cut hair at the same shop on Atwells Avenue for fifty-five years. Regulars say he never once wrote an order down. He simply remembered, from one haircut to the next, sometimes across a decade, exactly how each of them liked it. He closed the shop for good in 2019, at eighty-eight, only because his hands had started to shake. He trained three of his own grandchildren behind that chair on weekends, though only one of them stayed in the trade.
He is survived by his children, Anthony Bianchi and Rosa (Bianchi) Falcone; eleven grandchildren; fifteen great-grandchildren; and his brother, Dominic. He was preceded in death by his wife, Angelina, in 2016.
A funeral Mass will be held Tuesday, August 20, at 10 a.m. at Holy Ghost Church, Providence, with burial at St. Ann Cemetery. Friends are welcome to stop by the shop’s old corner afterward, as Sal would have wanted.
Obituary examples for a sibling
A sibling’s obituary often carries a family’s private shorthand: the role that got assigned early in life and never really changed.
Example: the sibling who organized everyone
Deborah “Debbie” Yun, 52, of Federal Way, Washington, died March 27, 2025.
Debbie spent her career as a travel agent and, after the industry changed, as a travel writer for regional magazines, work that suited someone who had been organizing other people’s lives since childhood. Since 1988 she ran the extended family reunion off a box of index cards, alphabetized by last name and updated every year in her own handwriting; no one has yet volunteered to take it over. She never married, and told anyone who asked that she had simply never met a schedule she liked as much as her own.
She is survived by her parents, Edward and Insook Yun; her sister, Christine (Yun) Park; her brother, Daniel Yun; and eight nieces and nephews, who called her, without exception, Aunt Debbie-with-the-plan.
A memorial gathering will be held Saturday, April 5, at 1 p.m. at the Yun family home in Federal Way, in place of the reunion Debbie would have been planning by now.
Example: the big brother, with his own family too
Anthony “Tony” Marchetti, 63, of New Haven, Connecticut, died October 9, 2024.
Tony worked the docks for thirty-one years with the International Longshoremen’s Association, retiring in the same month his own father had, twenty-eight years earlier, a coincidence he mentioned often and never tired of. He taught each of his three siblings to drive in the same church parking lot their father had used, and needled them about their parallel parking for decades afterward. To all of them, he was, for sixty-three years, the one who answered the phone at 2 a.m. without complaint.
He is survived by his wife, Carla Marchetti; his children, Nicholas and Sofia Marchetti; his siblings, Paul Marchetti, Rosa (Marchetti) Greco, and Angela Marchetti; and five grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his parents.
A funeral Mass will be held Saturday, October 19, at 10 a.m. at St. Michael’s Church, New Haven, with burial at St. Lawrence Cemetery.
Obituary examples after a long illness
Dignity here means plain language, not silence. You can name the illness without narrating a fight. Say what happened, in one sentence, then go back to who they were.
Example: illness named plainly
Georgette “Gigi” Aubuchon, 77, of Lafayette, Louisiana, died June 14, 2025, after a long illness with ovarian cancer, at home, in hospice care, with her family present.
Gigi taught Cajun French at Lafayette High School for thirty years, at a time not far removed from when the language was actively discouraged in Louisiana schools, and she considered the job a small correction of history. She wrote a limerick for every colleague’s retirement party, requested or not, in French and English both, and kept carbon copies of each one. Former students, now well into their own middle age, still write to her family in French, out of habit.
She is survived by her husband, Emile Aubuchon; her children, Nicole (Aubuchon) Hebert and Marc Aubuchon; and four grandchildren. A private family service was held on Aubuchon family land outside Lafayette, as Gigi requested. In lieu of flowers, the family asks donations to the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana.
Example: a second illness, named without a metaphor
Frank Delgado, 86, of Pueblo, Colorado, died April 2, 2025, after a long illness with Parkinson’s disease.
Frank worked as a machinist at CF&I Steel for thirty years before a layoff sent him back to school in his fifties; he became a deacon at his parish at sixty-two and stayed active in that role for nearly two decades, driving himself to hospital visits until his hands made driving unsafe. He carried his own father’s pocketknife every day of his adult life and used it, for six decades, to open every piece of mail that came to the house, and taught three of his grandchildren to whittle with it, supervised closely, once each turned ten.
He is survived by his wife, Consuelo Delgado; his children, Marisol (Delgado) Trujillo, Frank Jr., and Ana Delgado; seven grandchildren; and his brother, Ruben. He was preceded in death by his parents.
A funeral Mass will be held Monday, April 7, at 10 a.m. at Sacred Heart Cathedral, Pueblo, with burial beside his father at Roselawn Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, the family asks donations to the Parkinson’s Foundation.
Obituary examples for a sudden or unexpected death
You don’t owe anyone an explanation. An obituary can simply say the death was sudden and stop there, or it can name a cause plainly if the family would rather. Both are shown below.
Example: no cause given, and that’s allowed
Katrina “Kat” Voss, 34, of Fargo, North Dakota, died suddenly on August 9, 2025.
Kat worked as a wildlife biologist for North Dakota Game and Fish, tracking prairie pothole waterfowl for nine years, work she talked about with more enthusiasm than most people bring to anything. Every Fourth of July since she got her driver’s license, she drove the same three-mile parade route through downtown Fargo in a borrowed convertible, waving the entire way, whether or not she was actually in the parade that year. Coworkers say she could identify a duck species from a silhouette at two hundred yards, a skill she was smug about roughly once a week.
She is survived by her partner, Sam Reilly; her parents, Karl and Michelle Voss; and her brother, Eric Voss. A celebration of life will be held Saturday, August 23, at 4 p.m. at Lindenwood Park, Fargo, along the river she spent her career studying. In lieu of flowers, the family asks donations to the North Dakota Wildlife Federation.
Example: a cause named, briefly and factually
Marion Freeman, 68, of Richmond, Virginia, died unexpectedly of a heart attack on February 20, 2025.
Marion carried mail on the same North Side route for twenty-nine years and knew every dog on it by name, along with most of their opinions about the mail truck. She had recently begun training her replacement and had, by all accounts, strong views on how the job ought to be done. Before the Postal Service, she drove a school bus for six years, and several of her former riders, now grown, still wave when they spot the mail truck on her old route.
She is survived by her husband, James Freeman; her children, Angela and Gregory Freeman; and four grandchildren. A funeral service will be held Friday, February 28, at 11 a.m. at First Baptist Church, Richmond, with visitation one hour prior. In lieu of flowers, the family asks donations to the American Heart Association.
Obituary examples for a veteran
Give the service record plainly: branch, rank, years, where they served, the same way you’d give any other job history. Let the honor sit in the specifics, not in extra language.
Example: Vietnam era, full honors
Otis Radcliffe, 78, of Meridian, Mississippi, died May 30, 2025.
Otis was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1966 and served as a corporal with the 4th Infantry Division, including a tour in Vietnam, before an honorable discharge in 1968. He came home and spent the next thirty-nine years with the U.S. Postal Service. His grandchildren live eighteen hundred miles away in Oregon, and in 1995 he built them a treehouse in his own backyard anyway, in case they ever visited long enough to use it. They did, most summers, for years. He kept his old uniform boots polished in the hall closet for the rest of his life, though he never once put them back on.
He is survived by his wife, Beatrice Radcliffe; his children, Otis Jr. and Marilyn (Radcliffe) Cho; five grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. A funeral service with full military honors will be held Thursday, June 5, at 11 a.m. at Zion Chapel A.M.E. Church, Meridian, with burial at Magnolia Cemetery. The VFW Post 4586 honor guard will conduct the flag ceremony.
Example: a more recent era, service continued after
Staff Sergeant Ana Belen Reyes, U.S. Army (Retired), 48, of Killeen, Texas, died September 12, 2024.
Ana served twenty years in the Army, including two deployments to Iraq, and retired as a staff sergeant in 2015. She spent the nine years after that as a counselor with the Department of Veterans Affairs, and colleagues say she kept a habit from her uniformed years: a handwritten note tucked into every case file, meant for the one person who would actually read it. Before the Army, Ana was the first in her family to finish high school, and she kept a framed copy of that diploma in her office at the VA, next to her discharge papers, side by side.
She is survived by her husband, Victor Reyes; her children, Isabella and Diego Reyes; and her mother, Lucia Belen. A graveside service with military honors will be held Tuesday, September 17, at 10 a.m. at Central Texas State Veterans Cemetery, Killeen.
Celebration-of-life obituary examples
Warmth and a little humor belong here when the life itself was funny, never the death. Let the jokes be about how they lived.
Example: warm, a little funny
Bernard “Bernie” Loftus, 74, of Key West, Florida, died June 28, 2025.
Bernie ran a charter fishing boat out of Key West for thirty-one years and claimed, with total sincerity and no evidence anyone could ever verify, to have personally taught a dolphin to wave. He kept a jar on his windowsill with one piece of sea glass for every summer he spent on that water, and it was, by his own count, a genuinely enormous jar. He was, by his own frequent admission, a mediocre fisherman and an excellent storyteller, and people kept booking him anyway.
He is survived by his wife, Colleen Loftus; his children, Patrick and Maureen Loftus; and four grandchildren, all of whom have, at some point, been made to hold a fishing rod against their will and thanked him for it later.
A celebration of life will be held Saturday, July 12, at 4 p.m. at the marina where Bernie kept his boat, with drinks and stories to follow until the sun and the stories both run out. In lieu of flowers, the family asks donations to the Florida Keys Wildlife Rescue.
Example: a small, specific joy
Yvonne Tanaka, 69, of Tucson, Arizona, passed away March 5, 2025.
Yvonne spent twenty-six years as the librarian at Sabino Elementary, where she was known for reading picture books in a different voice for every character, no exceptions, even for the narrator. At home, she read the newspaper aloud each morning to her elderly beagle, Biscuit, cover to cover, on the theory that he deserved to be informed even though he showed no particular evidence of caring. She also ran the school’s book fair for two decades and could match almost any child to the right book in about four seconds flat.
She is survived by her husband, George Tanaka; her daughter, Denise (Tanaka) Reyes; two grandchildren; and Biscuit, who is being cared for by the family.
A celebration of life will be held Sunday, March 16, at 2 p.m. in the courtyard of Sabino Elementary’s library, the room she more or less built. In lieu of flowers, the family asks donations to the school’s book fund.
Religious obituary examples
Faith language belongs when it matches how the person actually lived and worshipped. Write it the way their own congregation would recognize.
Example: Christian, standard phrasing
Dorothy Mae Higginbotham, 81, of Tupelo, Mississippi, died October 21, 2024, and was welcomed into the arms of her Lord and Savior.
Dorothy served as a deaconess at First Baptist Church of Tupelo for over thirty years and sang alto in the choir for forty, without ever learning to read music, by the simple method of listening hard and never missing a Sunday. “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21) was the verse she asked to have read at her funeral, chosen years in advance. She also led the church’s Wednesday prayer line by phone for thirty years, calling each name on the list herself rather than handing it off.
She is survived by her husband, Wendell Higginbotham; her children, Patricia (Higginbotham) Moss and James Higginbotham; six grandchildren; and her sister, Betty Sue Nichols.
A funeral service will be held Friday, October 25, at 11 a.m. at First Baptist Church of Tupelo, with burial at Glenwood Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, the family asks donations to the church building fund.
Example: Jewish, standard phrasing
Miriam Blumenthal Katz, 85, of Cherry Hill, New Jersey, died January 26, 2025. May her memory be a blessing.
Miriam worked as an accountant for forty years, retiring at seventy, and at sixty-one taught herself conversational Portuguese so she could speak directly with her son-in-law’s parents in Brazil instead of waiting on a translation. She called her son-in-law’s mother every Sunday afternoon after that, in halting but improving Portuguese. She kept every one of her handwritten Portuguese flashcards in an old recipe box, still sorted by category, long after she had any real need for them.
She is survived by her husband, Saul Katz; her children, Rachel (Katz) Ferreira and David Katz; and five grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her parents, who left Poland in 1938.
Funeral services will be held Tuesday, January 28, at 11 a.m. at Congregation Beth El, Cherry Hill, with burial immediately following at the congregation’s cemetery. Shiva will be observed at the family home beginning that evening.
Non-religious obituary examples
No faith language needed: a secular obituary can close on a memory or a plain sentence about the life instead of a verse.
Example: secular, closes on a memory
Elliot Sung Park, 58, of Portland, Oregon, died July 15, 2025.
Elliot spent twenty-two years as a software engineer before retraining, at forty-four, as a furniture maker, a decision his family questioned at first and later admitted was the right one, given the dining table currently in use by four different relatives. He played gin rummy with his younger sister every week for over thirty years and, by his own careful count, never once beat her. He also spent two winters building a scale model of the house he grew up in, entirely from memory, down to the crack in the driveway, and gave it to his mother one Christmas.
He is survived by his wife, Grace Park; his children, Ellie and Noah Park; and his sister, Sarah (Park) Lindqvist, who still has the scorecards. No religious service is planned. Family and friends are invited to a gathering at Hopworks Urban Brewery, Portland, on Saturday, July 26, at 3 p.m., where Elliot’s rummy scorecards will be on display, undefeated, as they always were.
How to adapt an example
Pick the example closest to your situation and work through it in this order. First, swap every fact: name, age, city, dates, jobs, schools, survivors, everything in the opening paragraph. Then find the one specific detail in the middle, the pocketknife, the parade route, the coffee orders, and replace it with one true story about your own person, even a small one; it does more work than any other sentence in the obituary. Read the whole thing aloud once before you send it anywhere. You’ll hear the parts that still sound like someone else. Last, check every name and date against whatever official version you have, the funeral home, a family group text, anything, because this is the one piece of writing about them that gets kept.
Frequently asked questions
How long should an obituary be?
There’s no required length. A short obituary for a newspaper notice usually runs 50 to 100 words; a fuller one for a funeral home’s website or an online memorial can run 400 words or more without anyone minding. Length matters less than whether it sounds like the person: a plain, specific paragraph beats a long one that could describe anyone.
Can I copy one of these?
Yes. That’s what they’re for. Pick the one closest to your situation, change the facts to match your person, and add one detail that only you would know: a habit, a phrase, a place. That one true detail is what turns a template into an obituary that sounds like them.
Do I have to include the cause of death?
No. Many obituaries never mention it, which is a fine choice, especially soon after a death, while the family is still deciding what to share. If the death was by suicide, many grief organizations now encourage naming it plainly when the family is comfortable doing so. The accepted phrasing is “died by suicide”; older wording that treated it as a crime is no longer used. But the choice, and the wording, belongs to the family alone.
What if I can’t afford a newspaper notice?
A newspaper notice is optional, and increasingly rare: most people now read obituaries wherever the funeral home or family posts them online, which is usually free. A funeral home will typically publish the obituary on its own website at no extra cost, and you can share that link anywhere; a printed newspaper notice is worth paying for only if you know the person’s community still reads the obituary page.
If grief or loss ever feels like more than you can carry, you don’t have to carry it alone. In the US, call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline). Outside the US, findahelpline.com lists free, confidential helplines by country.
Write yours before someone else has to
Every example above was written by someone left behind, guessing at the details, on a deadline of a few days. In Myend, you write your own obituary in advance, in your own words, at whatever pace you want, so your family never faces a blank page during the worst week of their lives. It sits alongside the rest of your end-of-life planning: what to do, who to call, and how you want to be remembered.
Start writing yours free. You can change it any time.
Write the obituary
Six short questions, at whatever pace you have. Answer only what you can, and we write one complete draft you can hand to a funeral home or a newspaper.
What was their name?
The full name a notice would carry, and the name the people who loved them actually used.
Their age, or their years.optional
Either is fine: “84” or “1946–2026”. We will never ask how they died. That is yours to include or leave out.
Who do they leave behind?optional
Write it the way you would say it out loud. Names, in the order that matters to your family.
Only the names you write here will appear. We add no one.
What filled their life?optional
Pick what fits, then add one specific thing: the detail that makes it them and no one else.
Service details, if they are settled.optional
Leave any of this blank. You can add it to the draft later with one tap.
How should it read?
Newspapers usually want Short and Traditional. A funeral home notice can breathe more.
Writing the obituary. This takes a moment. There is no rush.
Check every name, date and place before you share this. We wrote it from your answers only, and accuracy here matters more than anywhere.
Email me this obituary, print-ready
Optional. The draft above is already yours. Copy it and close this page if that is all you need. The emailed copy is simply easier to print and hand to a funeral director.
