I lost my mother on September 14th, 2023.

I gave a eulogy then, but if I'm being honest, I wasn't proud of it. My mind was clouded by grief. I said what I could, but looking back, I think you deserved a better send-off, Mom.

My mother had an obsession with hummingbirds in the last six months of her life. She even told me she wanted to get a hummingbird tattoo. She was not one for tattoos at all, one of the reasons I've never gotten one myself.

Now that she's passed, I see them much more often. Or maybe I'm paying attention to them more. Looking for them. More likely, looking for signs of her.

I learned that hummingbirds can pollinate up to 2,000 plants a day, which is mind-blowing. They generally live for only three to five years. In my mind, that seems like such a blip for a life. Such a short time for something so beautiful.

Then again, we're all here for such a short time. Hummingbirds are busy, pollinating all those plants. In fact, a single hummingbird can help pollinate millions of plants throughout its lifetime.

When I learned that, I couldn't help but think about my mom.

My mom spent 26 years as a teacher, but teaching wasn't the only thing she gave people.

Instead of spreading pollen, she spread love, faith, knowledge, laughter, joy, and the belief that family should always be a priority.

She chose love for her children, trying to find their own way in life, making mistakes, stumbling, and falling short more times than they would probably like to admit. She loved us through all of it.

She chose faith in a Lord she believed in completely, spending her life giving all the glory to Him.

She spread knowledge through her career to thousands of students who always knew Mrs. Merrill had their back. She stayed late when they needed her, put in the extra work, and made sure no one felt left behind — even if they played basketball "like a girl," as she'd tease.

She chose to crack jokes with everyone she knew. She chose laughter with her care team while fighting Stage 4 breast cancer. Bearing incredibly tough treatment, she was still fighting, still making plans for what came next, and always finding reasons to laugh.

She chose joy in a sweet treat like one of her favorites, a banana milkshake, especially after hard days because, as she would say, "We deserved it."

I think the greatest lesson hidden in all that pollen is that family is a choice.

We choose to show up for each other. We choose to help when things are heavy. We choose to listen when there are no answers. We choose to stay when it might be easier to leave. We choose to keep loving each other through every season of life. We are born into a family, but our actions and choices determine whether that family stays or fades.

My mom chose those things every day of her life.

Looking back, I can see the pollen in every heart she touched.

In her students. In her friends. In her family. In me.

Love. Faith. Knowledge. Laughter. Joy. Family.

I choose to keep spreading the pollen.

SHE MUST BURN - EULOGY

Loch Lomond, Gustave Doré (1875)

&

Someone you love has passed away. Someone has asked you, or you have volunteered, to write the eulogy. And now you are sitting in front of a blank page wondering how you are supposed to distill an entire person into a few minutes of spoken words while your brain can barely form a grocery list.

This is one of the most common experiences in grief, and it is almost never talked about honestly. So here is the honest version.

You Do Not Have to Be a Writer

A eulogy is not a literary performance. It is a gift to the room. The people sitting in those chairs are not grading your prose. They are looking for connection: a moment where someone says something true about the person they all lost, and the room exhales together.

That means the bar is lower than you think. One genuine story, told simply, is worth more than ten polished paragraphs.

A Structure That Works When Your Brain Does Not

Start with who they were to you. Not their resume, not their biography. Your specific relationship. "My grandmother taught me to play cards by letting me win for two years straight before she started playing for real." That kind of thing.

Then share one or two stories that capture something true about their character. Funny is fine. Imperfect is fine. The most memorable eulogies include moments that make the room laugh and moments that make the room cry, sometimes in the same sentence.

Close with what they leave behind: not possessions, but presence. How the world is different because they were in it. What you carry forward from knowing them.

That is it. Three sections. You can write it in 20 minutes or 20 hours, and it will land either way because it is real.

Practical Tips for Getting Words on Paper

Talk first, write second. Record yourself telling a story about the person on your phone. Transcribe it. Clean it up. You will find that your spoken voice captures the emotion your writing brain is too tired to access.

Keep it under five minutes when spoken aloud. That is roughly 600 to 750 words. Shorter is almost always better. The audience is grieving too, and attention spans during funerals are genuinely limited.

Write it out fully even if you plan to speak from the heart. Grief has a way of erasing your train of thought at the podium. Having the full text in your hands is not a crutch. It is preparation.

Ask for contributions. Text three people who loved the person and ask them to share one memory in a few sentences. Weaving other voices into the eulogy creates a richer portrait and takes pressure off you to represent the whole relationship alone.

What to Do If You Cannot Get Through It

Practice reading it aloud at least twice before the service. Identify the moments where your voice will break. Those are the moments to pause, breathe, and let the silence do the work. Silence in a eulogy is not failure. It is the room feeling together.

If you truly cannot get through it, ask someone to stand beside you as a backup reader. Hand them the text beforehand. If your voice gives out, they step in. There is no shame in this. It happens more often than people admit.

For more guidance on funeral planning and the emotional logistics that come with it, Memorial Merits offers free resources designed for families in exactly this moment.

One Last Thing

The person you are writing about would not want you to suffer over getting the words perfect. They would want you to stand up, say something true, and sit back down knowing you honored them. That is all a eulogy is.

6:01 AM EDT May 17, 2026:

Tool - "Eulogy" From the album Aenima (September 17, 1996)

On Monday I laid my Dad, Clifford to rest. I a beautiful ceremony filled with love and amazing people. Thank you to everyone’s care, thought and intention the last 5 weeks since he has gone.

Today I share with you with a poem I wrote on the day he died. In my typical fashion I’ve transformed energy into creating something. As I did with image typically, I do now but in words. A CLIFF

[POEM, 2026]

‘Poem typeset in Lumen Red.’

IMAGE SOURCE: Cliff: IMG_1735.HEIC, Dad sitting on a bench, 2025.