Eulogy for Grandmother: Examples, Templates & Tips

Step 5: Edit, print and practice

Cut anything that doesn’t serve the theme. Then print the speech in 14- to 16-point type, double-spaced, with page numbers, and mark the places where you plan to pause. Read it aloud three or four times, at least once to another person. Practice doesn’t make it less emotional, but it makes the words familiar enough that you can keep going when emotion arrives.

Eulogy Examples for a Grandmother

The four sample eulogies below are complete speeches you can adapt. The names and details are fictional. Replace them with your grandmother’s name, the name you called her, and your own stories; the structure and transitions will carry over. Each is written to be read aloud, so the sentences are short.

Sample 1: A short eulogy for grandmother (about 3 minutes)

Good morning. My name is Daniel, and Ruth Ellison was my grandmother. On behalf of our family, thank you for being here.

If you knew Grandma Ruth, you knew her kitchen table. It had a wobble she never fixed, a sugar bowl that was never empty, and a chair for anyone who walked through the door. I don’t think I ever saw her sit down at it herself. She was always up, getting you something.

That was Grandma. She paid attention. When I was nine and failed a spelling test, she didn’t say much. She just started slipping a word into every phone call. “Daniel, how do you spell ‘necessary’?” For a year. I can still spell it.

She wasn’t soft. She told you the truth, and then she fed you. My cousins and I used to compare the lectures we’d gotten, and we always ended up laughing, because every one of them ended the same way: “Now, are you hungry?”

Grandma, thank you for the table, and the chair, and the sugar bowl. Thank you for paying attention to all of us, every day, for as long as you were able. We’ll keep the chair open. We love you. Goodbye.

Sample 2: Eulogy for grandmother from granddaughter

Most of you knew her as Margaret. A few of you knew her as Peggy. I knew her as Nana, and for the first twelve years of my life, I thought that was her actual name.

Nana taught me to braid hair, to make a bed with hospital corners, and to never, ever show up at someone’s house empty-handed. She also taught me, without ever saying it, what it looks like to love someone steadily. My grandfather was sick for a long time at the end of his life, and I watched her care for him every day with the same calm she brought to everything. When I asked her once if she was tired, she said, “Of course I’m tired. That’s not the question.”

I think about that a lot. For Nana, love wasn’t a feeling you waited to have. It was a thing you did, whether you felt like it or not. She did it for Grandpa. She did it for my mother. She did it for me, every Sunday afternoon of my childhood, with a deck of cards and a plate of shortbread.

She was also funny, in a way that snuck up on you. She kept a running tally of every time the weatherman was wrong. It was on the refrigerator. By the end it had three pages.

Nana, I don’t know how to do this without you. But you spent my whole life showing me how to keep going when things are hard, so I’m going to try. Thank you for the braids, and the shortbread, and the hospital corners. Thank you for loving all of us on purpose. I’ll carry you with me every day.

Sample 3: Christian eulogy for grandmother

Thank you all for coming to celebrate the life of Dorothy Mae Carter: my grandmother, and the first person who ever prayed over me.

Grandma Dot’s faith wasn’t loud. It was in the way she lived. Her Bible sat on the arm of her chair, soft at the edges, with birthdays and prayer requests written in the margins. Every morning she read a chapter, and every night she went down the list of names. I was on that list before I was born. I think most of you were on it too.

Proverbs says of a virtuous woman, “She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness.” That was Grandma. She could tell you hard truths, and you’d thank her for them, because you never doubted that she was for you.

She showed her faith with her hands as much as her words. For thirty years she cooked for the church’s Wednesday supper. When the Hendersons’ house burned, she had them at her table that night and in her spare room for a month. She never called it ministry. She called it Tuesday.

In the last weeks, when she knew her time was short, she wasn’t afraid. She told my mother, “I’ve been packed for years.” She believed, with her whole heart, the words of Paul: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.”

Grandma, you kept it. You kept it for all of us. We’ll keep reading the chapter and going down the list. Rest now, in the arms of the One you trusted. Until we see you again.

Sample 4: Eulogy for a great-grandmother

My name is Sofia. Elena Marchetti was my great-grandmother, and I’m one of eleven great-grandchildren who called her Bisnonna.

It’s hard to describe a life that long. Bisnonna was born in a village most of us have only seen in photographs. She crossed an ocean at nineteen with one suitcase and a recipe for bread that she would make every Saturday for the next seventy-four years. She raised four children, buried a husband, and lived to see her family grow to more than forty people. At her ninety-fifth birthday, she looked around the room and said, “I did this.” She wasn’t boasting. She was taking attendance.

To my grandmother, she was a mother. To my mother, she was the grandmother who taught her to sew. To me, she was the small, sharp woman in the kitchen who let me stand on a chair and punch down the dough, and who told me, in two languages, that I was doing it wrong.

What I understand now is that every one of us in this room is standing on something she built. The Saturday bread. The insistence that family comes to dinner. The habit of saying what you mean. She didn’t leave us money or a famous name. She left us each other, and she left us the way we are with each other.

Bisnonna, the bread won’t be as good. We’ll make it anyway, every Saturday, and we’ll tell your stories while it rises. Thank you for crossing the ocean. Thank you for all of us. Go with God.

Note: Scripture quotations above are from the King James Version. If your family uses a different translation, swap in the wording your grandmother knew.

Opening Lines, Closing Lines, and Getting Through It

The first and last sentences carry more weight than anything in between. A simple, honest opening settles the room; a short, direct closing lets people grieve. And whatever you write, the delivery will go better if you plan for emotion rather than hoping it won’t come.

How to open a eulogy for your grandmother

Keep the opening plain. You don’t need a famous quote or a dramatic line. Four openings that work:

•         Introduce yourself and her: “My name is Anna, and Helen was my grandmother. Thank you for being here with us today.”
•         Start with what you called her: “Everyone here knew her by a different name. To me, she was always Mimi.”
•         Start with a small, true detail: “My grandmother kept a jar of buttons on the windowsill for sixty years. I want to tell you why.”
•         Start with her own words: “Grandma had a saying for everything. The one I heard most was, ‘We’ll figure it out.’ I’ve been hearing it all week.”

If you’re reading on behalf of someone who couldn’t speak, say so in the first sentence.

What is the best closing line for a eulogy?

The best closing line is short, addressed to her, and says one of three things: thank you, goodbye, or I’ll carry you with me. It should sound like something you’d actually say. A few examples, by tone:

Avoid ending on a joke, a plea for the audience to do something, or a long quotation. Say the line, pause, and sit down.

Delivering the eulogy when you’re grieving

You will probably cry. Plan for it, and it stops being a crisis.

•         Print it large. 14- to 16-point type, double-spaced, one side of the page, page numbers. Don’t read from a phone.
•         Mark your pauses. Draw a line where you’ll stop to breathe. Pausing feels long to you and natural to the room.
•         Slow down. Solemn speeches are delivered more slowly than conversation; aim for the lower end of the usual 100 to 150 words a minute for speeches.
•         Keep water at the podium and take a sip when you need to reset.
•         Pick a face. Look at one supportive person when you need steadiness, then back to the page.
•         Name a backup. Give a copy to a sibling, cousin, or the officiant. If you can’t continue, they finish, and the room understands completely.
•         Rehearse aloud. Three or four times, once in front of someone. Familiar words are easier to say through tears.

If you break down, stop, breathe, and say, “Give me a moment.” No one in that room will think less of you. Many will love you more for it.