What to Write on a Memorial Page (With Examples)
Writing about someone you've lost is hard. The page is blank, the person was so much more than a few paragraphs, and it can feel as if anything you write will leave out what mattered most.
It helps to remember what a memorial biography is for. It isn't an obituary for the newspaper or a eulogy to be read aloud. It's for the people who will open the page — grandchildren, old friends, neighbours, someone who knew them for one summer decades ago — so that they recognise the person and perhaps learn something new about them.
You don't have to write it all at once. Start short; you can always come back.
A simple structure
Most good memorial biographies cover five things, roughly in this order. Each can be a sentence or a paragraph.
- Where they came from. Where and when they were born, the family they grew up in.
- What they did. Their work, their calling, the way they spent their days.
- What they loved. A garden, a football club, a kitchen full of people, a particular stretch of coast.
- Who they were to others. The small habits and phrases everyone remembers.
- Who remembers them. The family and friends they leave behind.
Questions that help
If you're stuck, try answering a few of these — out loud, to a relative, or in a voice note — and write down what you say.
- What would they be doing on an ordinary Sunday afternoon?
- What did they always say?
- What did people come to them for?
- What were they proud of, even if they never said so?
- What's a story about them that still makes the family laugh?
- What did their hands look like when they worked?
- If a stranger met them for five minutes, what would they notice?
Specific details do more than adjectives. "She was kind" tells the reader very little. "She kept barley sugar in her desk for children having a bad day" tells them who she was.
Examples
These are invented, but written the way real families write.
A short version (three sentences)
Ahmed was born in Alexandria and spent forty years as a ship's engineer, which is why he could fix anything and never sat still. He loved backgammon, strong coffee and arguing about football. His grandchildren in Toronto, Hamburg and Cairo still call each other after every Al Ahly match.
A longer version
Peggy was born in Dingle, County Kerry, the youngest of five, and spent almost her whole life within sight of the bay.
She taught at the national school for thirty-four years. Generations of children learned to read at her table by the window, and many of them still remember the barley sugar she kept in her desk for good days and bad ones.
When her son left for Boston and her daughter for Sydney, Peggy started writing to them every Sunday after Mass — two letters a week for over forty years.
You can read the rest of Peggy's (fictional) page in our example memorial.
For someone who died young
Lena was twenty-three, halfway through a master's in marine biology, and the only person any of us knew who was genuinely excited about plankton. She played the cello badly and the drums rather well. She leaves her parents, her brother Jonas, and a group chat that will never be quite as loud again.
What to leave out
- The cause of death, unless the family wants it there. It's often the least important thing about a life.
- Private family matters — illnesses, disputes, finances. The page may be read by many people over many years.
- Details that could help a stranger: full home addresses, dates of birth of living relatives, anything you wouldn't post publicly.
If the page is Public, anything you write may appear in search results once it's verified. If in doubt, keep it Unlisted — only people with the link can open it.
Let others add their part
A biography is one voice. The memories section is for everyone else. Relatives and friends you send the link to can leave their own stories, even without an account — and they will remember things you never knew. Our guide on collecting memories from family abroad shows how to ask.
When you're ready, create a memorial and start with three sentences. That's enough.