The next eulogy is one that’s made its rounds across the internet and achieved a bit of online celebrity in itself, although the man eulogized wasn’t a celebrity at all. He was a retired fireman and father named William Ziegler, and when his children were tasked with writing his eulogy, they based it on what they knew best: their dad’s sense of humor. Remembering his love of forwarding them funny e-mails, including funny eulogies, they figured, probably correctly, that he would have loved to have one of his very own.
The eulogy is well-written and clever, and still rings completely sincere because of how it seems to communicate the essence of the man in question. After all, humans are more than a list of achievements. No one talks about a best friend saying, “He went to such a good college and had such a prestigious job.” The obituary is worth a read in full for the kind of lines that you can see eliciting ruddy-faced laughter from a good-natured dad — like mentioning his military service where he “only stuck it out for one war.”
Eric Idle’s Eulogy for George Harrison
Writing a eulogy is a terrifying responsibility. Writing a eulogy for one of the Beatles? That, as they’d say, is like writing a eulogy for Jesus, but bigger. Comedian Eric Idle, a friend of George Harrison, the Beatle that’s not John Lennon or Paul McCartney but also isn’t Ringo Starr, proved more than up to the task. His eulogy of Harrison, read during his posthumous induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, is so dense with jokes it reads more like a monologue than a memorial, but again, it never feels wrong, because you can almost imagine the honoree gleefully listening from above.