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Brett and Kate McKay
• What will people miss most about you? The creative homemade gifts
you gave every Christmas? What a good listener you were? The handwritten
letters you sent to friends? The way you could turn every mishap
into something to laugh about?
Step 2: Turn your outline into a eulogy.
Now you’re going to take all of the ideas you just jotted down and coalesce
them into a finished project. Here’s an easy format to follow:
1. Birth and childhood. Keep this section pretty brief.
2. College and career. Where you went to school, what you majored in,
what jobs you had. Include any awards you won or accomplishments
you made.
3. Family and relationships.
4. Your hobbies and interests.
5. The qualities and characteristics that set you apart and made
you memorable.
6. What people will miss about you.
Your eulogy doesn’t have to be an endless tome. Just hit the high points of
your life, the really important stuff. Here’s a sample eulogy that I made up:
“Carl Johnson was a true New Yorker. He was born in the city in 1978 and
he never truly left. Although he traveled the world extensively, and lived
at times in other places, he always came home to the Big Apple. He said
the city was truly in his blood, and there was never any doubt about where
he would retire. Carl grew up in the Bronx and showed his propensity for
adventure early on when he snuck out of the house and rode the subway all
over the city at the tender age of 8. Carl’s parents were terrified; Carl was
delighted.
Carl went to school at NYU and studied journalism. He wanted to be another
Bob Woodward or Carl Bernstein. He worked for several smaller papers,
always burning the midnight oil, always hot on the trail of the next big story.
He landed his dream job when he was hired by the New York Times to
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