How to Write an Obituary for a Parent, Spouse or Friend: Structure, Examples and a Fill-In Template

November 5, 2026 · 6 min read

The funeral director asked Daniel for the obituary about thirty hours after his mother died. He wrote her name and the dates, and stopped. Everything he could think of was either too small (the way she labelled jars) or too large (what she had been to him) to go in a newspaper. By the deadline he had written it four times and hated all of them.

If that is where you are, this post is about how to write an obituary for someone else, quickly, while grieving. It gives you the structure, three short examples, a fill-in template, what to leave out, and what newspapers charge for. Writing your own in advance is a separate guide, linked at the end.

What an obituary is for

Two jobs. Notice: telling people someone has died and what happens next, so they can come to the funeral or send a card. And portrait: a few sentences that let a stranger understand who this person was and let a friend nod in recognition. It is not a eulogy; the eulogy is spoken and can be long, while the obituary has to work in two hundred words for people who may never have met them. That constraint gives you permission to leave almost everything out.

How to write an obituary: the standard structure

Obituary writing follows a shape readers expect. Each part can be one sentence.

1. The announcement. Full name, including a maiden name or nickname, age, and the date and place of death. A cause is optional; "after a short illness" is enough.
2. The life in brief. Where they were born, what they did, where they lived. Two or three sentences.
3. What they were like. One or two specifics that are true and recognisable: the garden, the terrible puns, forty years of Sunday football. Pick what their friends would pick.
4. The family. Who survives them, and who went before if you want to say so. Use the words the family uses.
5. The funeral. Date, time, venue, open or private, dress or flower wishes. If not fixed, say "details to follow" and where.
6. Donations and thanks. A charity in lieu of flowers, and a line of thanks to carers or a hospice if it is due.

Write the facts first; they steady you. If the middle will not come, ask two people who knew them for one memory each.

Three short example obituaries

These are invented; names and details are fictional and are here to show the shape, at a length a regional newspaper would carry without an alarming bill.

Example 1: a parent

Margaret Ellen Hobbs (nee Carey), aged 81, died peacefully at St Luke's Hospice on 1 November 2026 after a short illness. Born in Derby in 1945, she nursed for thirty years on the children's ward at the city hospital and never quite stopped telling people to sit down and drink some water. She loved her allotment, crosswords done in pen, and losing at cards to her grandchildren on purpose. Wife of the late Thomas, mother of Daniel and Sarah, grandmother of Ava, Leo and Sam. Funeral at St Andrew's Church, Mickleover, on Friday 14 November at 11 a.m.; all welcome. Family flowers only; donations, if wished, to St Luke's Hospice.

Example 2: a spouse

Rajan Pillai, 58, died suddenly at home in Leicester on 29 October 2026. He arrived from Kochi in 1994 with one suitcase and a civil engineering degree, built bridges for a living and friendships everywhere else, and could not pass a stranger without learning their life story. He is survived by his wife Anita, his children Maya and Arjun, his mother Lakshmi, and a very large number of people who called him uncle. Prayers at the family home on Sunday 9 November from 10 a.m.; the funeral will be private. A memorial gathering will be announced later.

Example 3: a friend

Jo Fenwick, 1979 to 2026. Jo died on 27 October at the Royal Infirmary, with her sister and oldest friends beside her. A graphic designer by trade and a climber by vocation, she spent most weekends on rock in the Peak District and most Mondays persuading the rest of us to come next time. She leaves her sister Claire, her nieces, her dog Pip, and friends with no idea what to do with their Saturdays now. Celebration of her life at the Climbing Works, Saturday 22 November from 2 p.m.; wear something bright. No flowers; Jo would rather you went outside.

A fill-in obituary template

Replace the brackets and delete any line that does not apply. The result will be plain, and plain is correct.

• [Full name] ([maiden name or nickname]), aged [age], died [peacefully / suddenly / after a short illness] at [place] on [date].
• Born in [place] in [year], [he / she / they] [worked as / spent their life] [occupation or main thing], and lived in [place] for [years].
• [He / She / They] will be remembered for [one or two specific things] and for [a quality their friends would name].
• [Husband / Wife / Partner] of [name], [father / mother] of [names], [grandparent] of [names]. Predeceased by [names], if wished.
• The funeral will take place at [venue] on [day, date] at [time], followed by [reception]. [All are welcome / The service will be private.]
• [Family flowers only.] Donations, if wished, to [charity]. The family would like to thank [carers, hospice, ward].
• Enquiries and messages to [funeral director or family contact].

What to leave out, and when not to publish details

A published obituary is public and permanent. Funeral directors have given the same advice for decades.

• The home address. Never. An obituary that names the street and the funeral time tells anyone reading that the house will be empty on that date. Use the funeral director's address for enquiries and flowers.
• Exact funeral times, if the house will be empty. Many families give the date and venue publicly and share the time privately, or ask a neighbour to sit in the house during the service. Burglaries timed to funerals are a known enough problem that this is routine advice.
• Full date of birth and mother's maiden name. With a name and address these are what identity fraud needs. The year of birth is enough in print.
• The cause of death, if anyone close objects. "Died" is a complete sentence.
• Anything unchecked. Spell every name, confirm the time with the venue, and have one other person read it before it goes to print.

Newspaper or online: cost and length

Newspapers charge for death notices by the line or by the word, often with extra for a photograph, so the price rises quickly with length; that is why printed notices read the way they do. Ask for the rate before you write, and write to the budget rather than cutting afterwards.

Online memorial pages, including the ones many funeral directors set up as a matter of course, are usually free or cheap with no real length limit. A common approach is the short notice in the paper pointing to the memorial page, and the fuller obituary, photographs and guest book online, where it can be edited after the funeral.

Our guide to informing someone of a death in writing has letter and notice templates the obituary text can be pasted into, and if you are also speaking at the service, what to say in a final message covers the personal register the obituary avoids.

Writing it for yourself in advance

Daniel said afterwards that the hardest part was not the grief but the guessing: which charity, which photograph, whether she would have wanted the hospice thanked by name. A draft of your own obituary, or half a page of notes, spares your family exactly that; our guide on how to write an obituary for yourself walks through it, and the digital legacy planning checklist covers where to keep it. If there are things you would rather say in your own voice than have summarised in two hundred words, a legacy letter delivered after your death is the place. The obituary tells people you lived. The letter tells them what you meant.