Writing An Obituary For Mother

This tip is nice if you have never written an obituary before. If you genuinely have no idea how to write an obituary for your mother, obituary templates for mothers can be extremely helpful. You may not need one if you have experience or if you prefer to do it on your own, but if you are having trouble generating ideas or if you are stressed about what to include, do not worry; there are many resources out there, and you can find online obituary templates with an easy search. 

If you are still struggling, or if a template is simply not enough to generate ideas, you can look up examples of well-written obituaries. In these, you may spot some of the best obituary phrases for a mother obituary. Take your time going over examples of touching obituaries and see if they spark any ideas for you about your mother. Make sure, if you are inspired by an example, to make it your own and to ensure that it is paying tribute to your mom. 

Maybe the templates and examples did not help you get started. Maybe you are weighed down by the pressure and you are worried about creating the perfect obituary for your mother. Just start! Sit down and pretend that you are writing a story about your mother, or a letter to someone else describing her and her life. You can even try to record yourself talking about her. Do not set any restrictions or parameters for this exercise. Simply brainstorming will get you in the right headspace and you may come up with some meaningful phrases you want to include in your maternal obituary. This will give you at least a starting point when you want to begin working on a first draft.

It is important for you to know any specific requirements you need to abide by before you start writing the obituary. The format, word count, and other requests will vary from place to place depending on where you decide to publish the obituary. Reach out to the website or newspaper you are planning on publishing your maternal obituary, take note of all the requirements, and then begin the process; this way, you will not have to go back and make any changes if a newspaper or website cannot accommodate your submission.

Using third-person narration, the obituary will read as if it is from an outside source; this means that you should avoid words like “I”, “we”, “our”, and “us”. Instead, write about your mother and her life as if you are a storyteller. This keeps your own voice removed and allows your mother’s life and legacy to be the star of the obituary. It also allows anyone who reads the obituary to feel connected, even if they were not specifically close to you.

Before you sit down and start writing, make sure you have all the information you need. Keep in mind that you may not know everything there is to know about your mother’s life, especially her life before you were born. Even having the things you want to include in point-form notes so you can see it all at once could be a good idea; this way, you can organize the obituary clearly and structure it how you think best. It will save you time and frustration if you lay out all of your information beforehand and then start writing when you have everything lined up and plotted out in a logical sequence. 

As you bring together all of the information you need and contemplate your mother’s life, reflect on who she was, what she did, and how she made people feel. This is the time when you should put aside your personal opinion; obviously, your perspective on her as a mother is significant, but not everybody reading the obituary is in the same position as you. At this stage, you should seek to understand a full image of your mother’s legacy so that you can paint an accurate portrait of her life. If she constantly made people laugh, consider adding in a light-hearted joke or even a funny anecdote; if she had a way of making people feel loved, try your best to emulate that feeling in her obituary. Part of memorializing your mother is capturing her true essence.

Writing an obituary for your mother is hard, and to make this process a little bit easier for you, we recommend recruiting help from the other people who knew your mother best, like your siblings, her siblings, a partner, or a best friend. They will likely provide valuable insight that you did not know, and they may have a meaningful way to articulate something you have been struggling with. 

On top of relieving some of the pressure, including other loved ones in the process of writing a heartfelt obituary for your mother allows them to be a part of the experience of reflecting and admiring the life of the woman they have loved and lost. It becomes a group task and can be a wonderful way for people to bond and deal with their grief together. 

Being given the demanding task of writing a meaningful mom obituary, one of the things you can do to set yourself up for success is to take into consideration your writing environment. Make sure you are in a place that facilitates reflection and creativity, or somewhere that you feel at ease; you are already dealing with a handful of tough emotions, so being distracted or uncomfortable where you are will not make this project any easier. 

Also, ensure that you are in the right mindset. Consider tackling this task somewhere you feel close to your mother. You can even have some of her things around you or you can keep a piece of jewelry with you while you write, like cremation jewelry honoring your mom or thumbprint jewelry honoring your mom. If you feel like she is with you, then you may find writing about her and her life will come more naturally. 

We understand that writing your mother’s tribute obituary can be emotionally taxing, and it may not be exactly what you want to do while you are trying to deal with such a painful loss. Our last tip for taking this process on is simply to give yourself time to experience the loss and to work through your feelings. If you need to first find emotional support before diving into your maternal obituary, you should take that time. Memorializing your mom will be a more enriching experience if you have given yourself the appropriate time and space to process your pain.

The first thing you should include in your mother’s obituary is her full name. If she was married, you can also include her maiden name as some people who knew her when she was younger may recognize this name more than her married one; however, some people avoid including her maiden name because it can sometimes be the answer to a security question if anyone tries to steal her identity, although this is rare. You can also mention any nicknames she had that were particularly well-known or ones that she was very fond of.

You can mention her date of birth, and you could choose to include where she was born or what hospital. Stating her exact birthday can also be used by scammers to steal her identity, so some people have resorted to only stating her age at death. This is your decision. 

In an obituary, you can state the date your mother passed, as well as where it happened. This would also be where you could reveal the cause of death, but this is completely optional. 

In the obituary, you should mention if there is going to be any sort of memorial service for your mother. Include details of a funeral, grave site visit, wake, or celebration of life so those that knew and loved your mother can be there to say their goodbyes, offer condolences, and celebrate the life of your mother. 

If the service for your mother is private rather than public, you can withhold these details from the obituary.

Include in the obituary if there is specific information the public should know about how they can express condolences more physically. If there is a particular place to send flowers, or a certain charity or organization that either the deceased decided upon ahead of time, or that you and other loved ones agreed upon afterward, this is where you can note those specifications.

It may seem obvious, but it is worth mentioning—read through the obituary! Read it many times over. Take a step back and do something else, then return to it so that you are more likely to catch mistakes that your eyes have been skipping over. When you write the obituary, you are most likely trying to get the words down and not necessarily focused on the grammar, punctuation, and spelling; once it is complete, do a few read-throughs to catch those errors.

Reading the obituary out loud is a great way to detect the errors you missed while reading in your head. This will also allow you to catch sentences that may be grammatically correct but do not flow well or that sound awkward. Doing this makes it easier to catch any repetitions or words that do not fit with the tone of the obituary.

If you are really worried about the quality of your work, you can hire a professional editor to take a look at the obituary. They will be able to catch the errors that an untrained eye might miss. This is an extra step, but it may help ease your mind. 

It is also beneficial to pass the obituary around to other family and friends. They may be able to find errors or they may have better ways of writing certain phrases. It is always good to get feedback, especially on something as important as a maternal obituary. It could also be a valuable experience to share this process with others and allow many people who loved your mother to take part in this meaningful task. 

An added way to skim over your work a final time could be to run it through some online programs that help with editing. For example, Grammarly is a website that offers free editing suggestions, and it could help fine-tune your obituary.