How honest ought a eulogy/obituary be?

I’m often impressed at the extent to which folk tend to present overly complimentary images of deceased persons. What are your thoughts about that? Why do people do it?

I’m not saying obits should be the opportunity to dump on the dead, but wouldn’t you rather be remembered as a real person, instead of some fictional character who was practically perfect in every way?

While I don’t want a completely negative eulogy, I also very much don’t want a completely positive one. Something along the lines of “He was a strange- really strange- guy. He loved flea markets and the laughter of children. He had heaps of really neat stuff. I would like to take this time to say that I, and not his legitmate heirs, should get that stuff.” would be good.

My paternal grandmother was an evil bitch. “We buried her face down, in case she attempts to dig her way out.” would have been a fitting eulogy. My dad, though I loved him, had serious problems as a result of his mother. I noted in his eulogy that if I heaped empty praise on him, he would have called it bullshit. My sister, who never got along with Dad, said nothing but kept silent.

Painting a flattering image works for me. It inspires people to do better with their own life and to find out more about their friends and relatives.

If the deceased was not at all a good person, or made some major mistakes in life, then yes please, don’t make them out to be a saint.

If the family wants to post an obit and agrees to cover the ugly with the good, that’s their call. If the person was a celebrity, then the bad should get covered in the media.

Yeah - that’s kinda the situation for me/us at the moment. FIL died last Fri. He was very successful in business, so he has a lengthy list of awards/recognitions/memberships/accomplishents/etc.

But the fucker was a bigamist - starting a new family while he was still married to my wife’s mom (since long deceased). He is the most pathological liar I have ever encountered, as well as a misogynist and bigot. The list goes on. Personally, I’m glad he’s finally dead, and looking forward to the last time we deal w his bitch of a 2d wife.

I’ve got no interest in airing all the dirty laundry at this point, but I’m anticipating considerable discomfort as wife #2 and her family present him as a flawless being.

At Ginny’s (for her name was Virginia. We NEVER called her bubby as that is a term of deep affection) funeral we all just kept quiet for the sake of Zeide Herman- He really was a saint and doubly so for putting up with Ginny. While standing there and saying negative things about the deceased might be doing wrong by them, saying positive things about folks like Ginny does a disservice to all the righteous dead.

What I imagine being very challenging for my wife is hearing folk talk about how great the dead guy was, and how sorry they are for my wife’s loss, when those same assholes kept quiet in the past despite knowing the dead guy was maintaining 2 households at the same time.

My friend died of AIDS. He had a lovely religious service. Afterward, a group of us who were longtime friends got booze and ice cream and held a private disservice to balance things out.

My beloved mother is 78. I’ve given serious thought as to whether to hire a male stripper for her funeral. My decision- it depends on how much it will cost and the logistics.

As the old saws state, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything” and “Don’t speak ill of the dead.”

I figure people are complex and some total assholes are the way they are because of how they were treated growing up or mental illness or whatever. A life has ended and most people have at least a few redeeming qualities we could acknowledge. But you can keep it short if need be.

I think a eulogy and obit should, ideally, reflect the good parts of a person and what they thought about themselves. Any bits of brutal honesty should be done with humor and affection and should be things that the person might say about themselves or at least things that you wouldn’t be afraid to say to their face. There’s a difference between “she loved terrible television, laughed at her own jokes, and was always late to everything” and “he was a narcissist and a sadist whose abusive behavior scarred his children for life and the world is better without him in it.”

If there’s not much that’s nice to say, just make it short, sweet, and to-the-point. It doesn’t have to be full of flowery lies, but there’s a time and a place for addressing how someone’s shortcomings might have affected their loved ones and the eulogy and obituary are not that time or place.

Maybe try a quiet “Yes, Dad’s other family said something very similar” in response to them?

Subtext: “I’m not going to badmouth my father for your entertainment or disparage anybody else’s expressions of grief, but let’s not forget all the bigamy stuff. That you secretly knew about while he was keeping his marital family in the dark.”

Carolyn Hax, the Washington Post’s advice columnist, mentioned at least one flaw of her late mother’s in a way that made her more endearing than a completely positive description would have. This is the part where I teared up:

She could, for example, hold a grudge longer than I think ever recorded in human history. If you told her someone was mean to you in school, she hated that person forever, no matter how nice the person turned out to be.

I have always said that funerals are for the living, not the deceased.
What matters is how those left are treated and behave. This sounds seriously complicated. You are not going to get closure on this mess easily. I doubt anyone is either blameless or full of evil intent. A conventional funeral with conventional eulogies isn’t going to cut it no matter what is done and said. Vindictiveness is clearly out. But sugar coating things to the point where there is discomfort of others is no better. One doubts there is any easy or useful reconciliation between the two households, despite the blood relationship, which is a pity. There are half siblings. That should count for something, and now the father is dead, there is no reason to ignore the reality. I guess money is in the back of some enmity. Not much one can do about that.
No matter what, you can’t change the past, and anything one says should be done to improve the situation. It isn’t the children of the second family’s fault how they came to be. I would be thinking about minimally maintaining a bridge to them. The eulogy could be anything, but it’s purpose going into the future is what matters.

Here’s a hilarious obituary which manages to be direct and honest without being mean-spirited. I learned about this when comedian Andy Richter tweeted about it.

An excerpt: “At one point in the 1980’s, Renay was the 11th or 12th-ranked woman in cribbage in America, and while that could be a lie, it sounds great in print. She also told us she came up with the name for Sunoco, and I choose to believe this, too. Yes, Renay lied a lot. But on the plus side, Renay didn’t cook, she didn’t clean, and she was lousy with money, too.”

Let’s cut to the chase, everyone: OP is really asking: What should Donald Trump’s eulogy be?

Perhaps we should have a thread on that. (Kind of like that thread about the headlines when New York is obliterated.)

Thanks for your thoughtful response. And thanks to the rest of you.

I dunno about closure, but with his passing, having to deal with this will become less of a day-to-day thing.

My wife is 60. The story was that, when she was a kid, her dad had an affair, but then broke it off. But then when she was 24 or so, she learned she had 1/2 siblings in their young teens. Her mom and dad eventually got divorced, and FIL married the mother of his other kids.

So over the decades since then, we’ve gone thru every possible way of dealing w/ that. To my wife’s credit, she most recently tried to have whatever relationship she could w/ the only father she has. As he became more decrepit, he became less of an asshole. Unfortunately, his 2d wife was his “gatekeeper.” But fortunately, she took care of him as he ailed, relieving my wife of what would have been a considerable burden.

One ongoing challenge has been that we never can really tell what who knew when - including my wife’s mom, and her parents’ longtime friends. Past history has shown that they are all very eager to lie at the drop of a hat.

On the day he died, 2d wife said something like, “We had been married 34 years, but have been together for 60.” So how the fuck is that supposed to make my 60 yr old wife feel? And 2d wife asked my wife and her sister to help write the obit. Of course my wife’s 1st response is,“Well, are you going to mention his first wife/family?”

I’m just hoping that w/ every day, he occupies less and less of my wife’s consciousness. And I’m gladly looking forward to whatever day is the last time we have to see/hear from that bitch.

I’m sorry for your wife’s loss. It sounds like that loss started a long time ago and has only finished with her father’s death.

I agree that funerals are for the living. People who have their care for the the deceased in common gather to make the death a little less lonely for each other. An anger fueled roast of the deceased is unkind to the people who are mourning someone they cared about. You can acknowledge that a person’s imperfections are part of who they were but, in general, the eulogy shouldn’t anger or sadden the mourners.

Given the ambivalence here, I’m wondering if your wife really wants to go to the funeral at all. Perhaps anyone who can’t say nice things about the deceased should give the eulogy. Is it too late to just decline to give a eulogy? And maybe skip the funeral altogether?

I highly doubt my wife or her full sisters will be asked to eulogize or play any other active part in any services. No “funeral” planned but some kind of “memorial” is being planned for sometime early in Jan. Looking like 2d wife will be entirely in control of what is done where, who is invited, etc.

2d wife said she wanted input in the opt. My wife and I immediately said one thing - that if he acquired anything he’d tell you he “got a deal on it.” 2d wife immediately said, no, that wasn’t correct. To which my wife immediately wondered, well, I guess you really DON’T want our input even to this minor extent. And began wondering how her mother/family would be mentioned…

As fucked up as my wife’s relations were w/ her father and his other family, he WAS the only father she had and now he’s gone. I expect she will want to play SOME part - however passive - in whatever memorial takes place. Just trying to anticipate, and prepare herself for, whatever likely slights may come.

My mother’s memorial service was last summer. Of all her children I was the one she disliked the most. I will be forever marked by her and not in any good way. I wondered what people would say – I had no intention of saying anything whatsoever, nor did I.

My mother’s favorite adage was “if you don’t have anything nice to say, say nothing at all.” This was one reason, I’m sure, of her lifelong adherence to saying as little as humanly possible. For her memorial I took her motto for my own.

People at the gathering said things like “she was hard to know.” A surprising number of people recalled that they eventually decided she cared about them because of things she did for them or with them, not because she smiled or complimented them or seemed happy to see them, since that wasn’t her m.o… This was interesting. I had no such memories myself. But most the attendees did manage to squeeze out some kind of praise for her. Good for them.

I could have said some horrible things about her, but what could that possibly do for anyone? Honesty is a shitty policy much of the time. I say this from experience. The honesty that is useful is honesty with oneself. Dumping your crap on others is not.

I always like the version, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, come sit next to me!” :smiley:

I recall my BIL eulogizing his dad, starting off, “My father was a very unremarkable man.” I just thought that refreshing.

My wife has no desire/intention of badmouthing her dad. Starting this OP, I was simply thinking it would be preferable to eulogize someone at least acknowledging the difficult aspects of their life. Hell, I think FIL was an asshole. But like I said, he had a number accomplishments, and many friends. I could easily imagine presenting a eulogy representing that the good he gave many folk other than my wife’s family outweighed the grief he gave them. But I think that both as a sign of respect to the dead - as well as to the various survivors - that the negatives should at least be acknowledged somehow.