The worst thing has happened: your person has died.
Now, you have to tell people.
There will be the first phone calls and the people you need to tell face to face. The word will spread through family, friends, and community. None of this is easy or fun. However, grief is often an isolating experience, and hopefully sharing this news and sharing your grief with others will be bolstering, therapeutic, and maybe even conjure funny or insightful stories about your loved one that you’ve never heard before.
An important way to tell people is through the formal announcement of an obituary: a published notification that often includes a brief biography, highlights of their accomplishments, and information about memorial services and places to make donations in their name.
An obituary can be published online, often through the funeral home if you use one, or through legacy.com, and in your local paper. This does incur a charge, often around $100 to $150 to start, with charges per line after that in the newspaper. If you want to publish in a major metropolitan paper, such as The New York Times, the cost can increase into the thousands.
An obituary can be as simple or as detailed as you like.
A note on gentle language. Conventionally, people write things such as “passed away at home” or “died peacefully surrounded by family and friends.” When someone dies from cancer or another illness, that will often be included with words such as “after a long battle with [illness].” If the death was sudden or accidental, people will sometimes share that the person “died unexpectedly.”
It is rare that the cause of death is revealed. This is mostly due to privacy concerns: to avoid potential stigma and gossip toward loved ones or how the manner of death could effect the person’s reputation. Sometimes, it’s simply that the cause of death is unknown before the obituary is published. If there are potential legal or liability considerations, it is very important to use gentle, neutral language. Sometimes people simply want the focus to be on the person’s life and not the manner of their death. Often, alluding to an illness or suddenness is sufficient for readers to gain an understanding of what happened and answer initial questions in their minds. Keep in mind that an obituary is a public and historical record and may be used in the future by genealogists, historians, friends and family, or other researchers.
This can include:
What were their favorite activities, hobbies, and interests? Think of things that they devoted a lot of time, attention, and care to, such as volunteering, passion projects, or even quirky characteristics that may give the reader who knew them a smile.
Here you can detail people who are prominent in their life. Traditionally, this includes their spouse or partner, children (and their spouses or partners), grandchildren, and parents.
Families can be complicated, and often people build chosen families. Don’t hesitate to include best friends, cousins, or anyone else who played a significant role in their life.
Additionally, you can name people who have died before them (“predeceased by…”). Most often, this includes people who died at early or unexpected ages, like a child, spouse, parent, or anyone they had particularly close relationships with, regardless of when they died.
Pets are often very significant to people and can be included as you would any other family member, including a special animal who may have predeceased your loved one.
Tip: Always triple check spelling of people and pet’s names!
If a memorial service is planned, include details here such as location, date, and time.
You can direct flowers to be sent to the venue or include the phrase “in lieu of flowers” and instructions where donations in their honor can be made. This may be funds for children they have left behind, money to help pay for funeral costs, or donations to causes that were important to them.
Many of our lives are not traditional, and therefore our obituaries may need to reflect that. Here are some common issues you may encounter when writing the obituary.
Estrangement or leaving people out. Sometimes significant relationships in a person’s life were complicated, and they may not have wished to have certain people named in their obituary. Ex-spouses, estranged family members, and people who were abusive or harmful are a few examples. Here are some ideas to navigate this complexity and decrease hurt feelings while respecting your loved one’s life experience.
Keep names to a minimum. By not naming anyone directly, or naming only a few of the most central people in your loved one’s life, you can set a broad-stroke tone that allows exclusions to be less obvious.
“Kaya’s friends and family will mourn her loss,” or “Ira is leaving behind his beloved wife, Ava, their four children, his extended family, and many friends.”
Employ neutrality. To avoid feelings of being left out, simply list relationships and names and use neutral, factual language such as “survived by” or “will be remembered by.” You can use general language to refer to others, such as “relatives,” “immediate family members,” or “people.”
“Amari is survived by her siblings, Marcus, Renee, and Jordan,” or “People in Javier’s life will remember him for years to come.”
Gentle acknowledgement. Depending on how your loved one and the person they had a complicated relationship with felt, you can approach their naming with a kind tone that acknowledges the complexity of their relationship.
“Though they did not remain close in adulthood, Miho leaves behind her brother, Haru,” or “Though Cheryl’s first marriage to Jamie did not last, they adored their children, Albert and Cara.”
Blended families. After a divorce, the death of a spouse, or marrying into a family with children, we may have stepchildren to acknowledge or want to note previous marriages. Stepchildren can be acknowledged as such in the same area as biological or adopted children.
If exes remain connected after a divorce and work together in parenting their children, you can identify the previous spouse as “friend and co-parent” or simply “co-parent” as a way to include them.
LGBTQIA+. LGBTQIA+ people often leave, or are forced out of, families and communities of origin who are homophobic or transphobic. Most go on to create their own chosen, loving families and inner circles. These relationships should be acknowledged as such in obituaries. The terms your loved one used to describe their relationships should be the words you use in the obituary. These may include “partner,” “spouse,” “sweetheart,” “chosen brother/sister/sibling,” “best friend,” or “significant other.”
Transgender, non-binary, and gender-expansive people often have names and pronouns that are different from those given or assigned at birth. The name and pronouns that they chose and used for themselves should be the only name and pronouns used in their obituary. It is a rare occasion that someone would want to be referred to with a name or pronouns previously used or assigned to them.
Singular they/them. The pronouns they/them are among the most commonly used pronouns. Writing an obituary for a person who used they/them pronouns is easy. Here is an example:
“Sandra graduated from the University of Michigan Medical School in 1996 with a specialty in emergency medicine. They went on to work in EDs in Milwaukie, Brooklyn, and Iowa City. Their passion for caring for people at their most vulnerable is a huge part of their legacy.”
Learn more about pronouns here.
Polyamory. People who are polyamorous (an umbrella term for being partnered or romantically involved with more than one person) and who publicly acknowledge their relationships may want each of their partners included in their obituaries. This can be approached in different ways and should include input from each of the partners, such as how names are ordered, how relationships are identified, and whether they want to be included at all.
It is important to note that your loved one or any one of their partners may not wish to have their polyamorous relationships included in their obituary. It is very important to respect those wishes. If there is conflicting preferences, do not include the names or relationships of people who do not want to be included.
Sometimes, newspapers and funeral homes have rules on who is allowed to be listed as a survivor and how they are identified. You can always publish an obit on Legacy.com, Everloved, or Keeper without any restrictions.
Tip: Remember that this obituary is about your loved one, not about how you or anyone else feels about the people who are included or excluded, or which name or pronoun they used. First and foremost, the question in your mind should be: “Would my loved one want this person named in their obituary as a significant person in their life?” You or others might not like the answer to that question, but the obituary is one of the first ways you respect and honor the life and legacy of your loved one, by keeping true to what you know of their preferences and desires.
Obituaries don’t have to be formal or even solemn. Feel free to include favorite anecdotes about your loved one, some of their well-known quirky or beloved habits, a little known or surprising life experience they had (they wouldn’t have minded being revealed), phrases or jokes they often repeated, or knowledge they would want to have shared with the world. The style in which it is written, the way it communicates their essence and personality, or steps out of the normal structure of an obituary can be a delightful experience for friends, colleagues and loved ones to read in the midst of their grief. Especially if your loved one would have appreciated something a little more creative, heart centered, or personalized, don’t be afraid to get creative.
For inspiration: Here is a wildly creative obituary written by Aaron Purmort and Nora McInenry before Aaron’s death from a brain tumor.
Just like the above example, on obituary can be written before you die. It can be a beautiful experience to write it together with your loved one before they die: learning more about their life, who and what are most important to them, and spending time together reflecting on the most meaningful and significant times of their life. You can just note important things to include, create an outline or write the whole thing with them. While initially this may bring up strong emotion and feel morbid or possibly looking at death too squarely, it often becomes a cherished memory for the survivors and a way for the person who is dying to find some level of peace around that reality.
You don’t even have to be dying to write your obituary! Having an outline or obituary already written can alleviate a huge burden from your grieving loved ones after you die. Here are some tips:
Creating a life timeline where you chronicle each important milestone of your life with its date and location can be very helpful. You can include any information on this timeline that you think would be helpful in writing about your life
Keep a list of your loved ones, both alive and those who have died, who you would like to be included in your obituary. Write their relationship to you, how you want it described in your obituary, next their name
For Example:
June 2006 - Started massage career, San Francisco/Portland Oct 6, 2009 - Vesta born, San Francisco. “Cherished daughter” July 2011 - Moved back to Portland
Full draft:
Store these prewritten obituary elements with other end-of-life documents, like your will, locally on your computer and in a physical file folder.