How to write an obituary: a simple template, with examples
Writing an obituary is one of those tasks that arrives at the worst possible time and asks you to be clear-headed when you are anything but. It helps to know that an obituary is not a biography. It has a shape, and once you know the shape you can fill it in a piece at a time.
Here is the shape most obituaries follow, in order.
1. The announcement
The opening line states the death plainly — the name, the age, where and (if you wish) when. Many families add one soft phrase about how they died or who was with them.
Patricia Nolan died peacefully on 2 September 2026, aged 81, with her family beside her.
2. The life, briefly
A short paragraph on the outline of their life: where they were born, the work they did, the family they made. You are sketching, not documenting — the details that mattered, not all of them.
Born in 1945, she trained as a nurse, married John in 1968, and raised three children on the same street she lived on for fifty years.
3. Who they were
This is the heart of it, and the part people actually read twice. One paragraph on their character — the things anyone who knew them would nod at. A specific detail is worth a dozen adjectives, which is the same rule that makes a eulogy land.
She was fierce about fairness, hopeless at sitting still, and made a pot of tea the answer to every problem, large or small.
4. Who they leave
The people who survive them, usually closest first: spouse, children, grandchildren. It is common to name those who died before them here too.
She is survived by her children Anna, Michael and Ruth, six grandchildren, and her sister Jean. She was predeceased by her husband John.
5. The practical details
The service — when and where — and any wishes the family has: flowers, or donations to a cause in their name, or simply that people are welcome. The same details can sit on their memorial page, where they are easier to find than in a newspaper.
A service will be held at St Mary's on Friday 12 September at 11am. In lieu of flowers, the family asks for donations to the local hospice.
6. A closing line
One sentence to end on. It can be a line they used to say, or a simple statement of love.
She taught us to be kind and to stand our ground, often in the same afternoon. We will miss her every day.
Put it together
Read as a whole, those pieces make a complete, dignified obituary — and none of them asked you to be a writer, only to be true. Keep it as long or as short as feels right; a good obituary can be six lines or six paragraphs, and the people who read it can add what they remember alongside it.
If a blank page is the hardest part, Everkept has a free obituary writer that walks you through these same steps one question at a time and assembles a draft you can edit — no account, no cost, and nothing written by a machine pretending to know your mother. It is simply the blank page, made a little less blank.