Heartfelt Eulogy Examples for Father

We hope our eulogy examples will inspire you to write a heartfelt speech to honour your beloved father.  

I'm so proud to share the lovely eulogies my children made at my husband's funeral and I hope that they will help you to write equally moving eulogies for your loved ones.  

The following two eulogy examples are for a father, but you could adapt them for an uncle or grandfather.  The same principles apply for eulogies for mothers.

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Eulogy for his Father, by my Son, Andy

Eulogy For Dad by Andy

Dads are someone to look up to, someone to follow, someone to admire, someone to be proud of and someone to brag about, someone to hold and someone to cry with, someone to learn from and someone to respect, someone to listen to and someone to talk to, someone to try and impress, sometimes rebel against, and, someone, most of all, with whom to share everything this wonderful life has to offer.

I am so incredibly grateful and happy that I can stand here today and tell you that I have had all this and much, much more with my dad Colin. I have been blessed to have had Colin as my dad.

To say I loved my dad would be an understatement -  and  to say  I’m going to miss him would be an even greater understatement.

I cannot begin to imagine not having Dad on the end of a phone or popping around at a moment’s notice to assist, in his ever graceful manner, with any project great or small with which I happen to be needing advice or help, or to be with my children, Monica & Jamie.

Dad was always there for everyone, family, neighbours, colleagues, or friends. . .

I have known him to drive from Cambridge to Leeds to spend a weekend helping Lesley with some DIY projects at her place and then the following weekend drive across the country to help me with a move or a project in London.  He always seemed to be able to draw upon boundless energy.

He was a very clever man but was never afraid of having a laugh at his own expense.  He could help you with a complex pharmaceutical problem or just as happily, as many of you know, offer to be Santa Claus and have all the ladies of the Bridge Club queuing up to sit on his lap.

Dad was also always there for Mum to the point that she used to joke she was like the Queen and didn’t need or have to carry money.

For 52 years they have shared everything life can offer - together. They were a great team supporting each other in every way.

Dad was hard working, compassionate towards everyone, and deserved the success and rich life that he enjoyed.  He taught me many, many things but I think most importantly he gave us the ability to know that if you really put your mind to something, anything is possible, and never to be afraid to give anything a go.

His attention to detail and perfectionism was infectious and once in a while could get him into trouble. I will never forget when Lesley came home one day proud as punch and declared she got 99% in a music exam.  He stupidly asked “what happened to the other 1%?”.  He never lived that down. 

His passion for woodworking in his retirement gave him many happy hours creating in his workshop. Unfortunately woodworking tools can also be the sharpest. . . the very first time he used his imported Scandinavian carving axe he swiftly took off the end of his thumb.

Despite these odd foot in the mouth moments or unfortunate slip ups Dad was incredibly practical and creative and I am so lucky that he passed on so much of his knowledge and skills to me.

It is of course always possible to look back and remember those times when things didn’t always go to plan, like the time he installed a new dishwasher in our home in Letchworth, England.  All was well until Mum and Dad could not work out why, in the middle of the night, our dog Sheba was crying, only to come down and find her floating around a completely flooded kitchen in her dog basket!

Nobody can be perfect but Dad was as close to being the most perfect Dad anyone could have.

Dad's love was unconditional and this is something I will cherish from his character – and take with me forever. His kindness and generosity will be remembered by all who had the pleasure of knowing him.

I would like to thank my children for their contributions and music today.  You know Colin loved you all very much and he was so proud of all your wonderful achievements. Thanks to Andre for his support for us all and especially Lesley my beautiful sister who has always been there for me.

I also would like to thank my wonderful partner for her incredible love and support for me.

I am humbled by Mum’s strength over the past few days and her ability to focus on the amazing life she shared with my Dad and not dwell on what she has lost.

I hope that through this I can find strength from her example and be there for her whenever she needs me.

Eulogy for Her Father by My Daughter, Lesley

Eulogy for My Father by Lesley

I must be one of the luckiest people in the world.  How many times do you hear "If only I'd told him how much I loved him, but its too late" Or, " he was suffering so much it was a blessed release"? 

A few weeks ago, Andy and I were talking about how supportive Mum and Dad had been over the last few months and we decided we should surprise them with some flowers out of the blue.  By coincidence it happened to be Valentines Day when I ordered them.  We said on the message "Thanks for being the best parents on the planet"  And they are. 

Dad would do anything for anyone, And he DID. 

When I was in trouble he and Mum flew half way round the world to Spain to help me move house.  He came back to Australia alone, leaving Mum with me for a total of 9 weeks. 

He spent Christmas and New Year alone, looked after the house, carried out his duties as treasurer at the Bridge Club, and single-handedly entertained friends from England.  If he was lonely or found it hard, he never told me about it.  In fact he used to be rather proud about how well he'd managed everything.  

Dad was never a man of many words, he expressed his love through his actions.  He never came to my house without a car full of tools and a chain saw for chopping logs.  If I couldn't find a job for him to do, you could feel the disappointment.  He always sent me home with a bag of sawdust to mulch the garden. 

Andy got the woodworking bug from Dad, but I got the gardening bug.  When we were children he grew almost all our fruit and veg, and we would be sent down the garden at dinner time to pick carrots, peas, potatoes, gooseberries.  You name it, he grew it. 

I have retained that love of always having at least something from the garden on my plate.  I loved being able to repay him by cooking nice things from my garden. 

The other trait I picked up from Dad was an obsession for recycling, cleaning and rescuing things.  With me it manifested in rummaging round garage sales, auctions and charity shops. 

Dad used to love picking through the junk I carried home with me, and helping to restore things to their former glory.  The most recent find was about 20 wooden boxes I picked up at an auction.  He loved those and immediately cleaned up several which we gave away at Christmas.

Perhaps one of the most important things we shared was a love of music.  As you know we are quite a musical family.  Dad came to as many of my concerts as he possibly could when I used to sing in Leeds and London, but it was jazz that really set his feet tapping, so we'll listen to some of his favourites as we leave today.  

You could always tell when Dad was moved by something though, and it was usually when he was particularly proud.  Jamie playing the pink panther, or Monica doing a dance or gymnastics display. 

He would well up if we managed to find a particularly appropriate birthday or Christmas present, like the large wooden tail of a whale I found in a junk shop.  He and mum loved watching the whales from their balcony and they always seemed to manage to turn up on his birthday on 21st June. 

Today he would certainly have shed a few tears to see how many of his family and friends have turned up to celebrate his wonderful life.  He would also have been very surprised, as he was a very humble man, and we are incredibly blessed to have had him as our Dad, husband, grandad and friend.  

We didn't always see eye to eye on everything of course.  When I was in my late teens, early twenties and thought I knew everything we had some real run-ins.  He worked for a pharmaceutical company and I decided that alternative medicine was the way to go.  That caused some real humdingers! 

But in later years, he started using acupuncture, and I have come to appreciate the drug companies for increasing all our life expectancies so dramatically over the last 100 years or so.

Of course, he wasn't 100% good humoured.  Like anyone he had his little ways.  He had a short fuse, hated inefficiency, bureaucracy and hypocrisy.  He was a real perfectionist and everything had to be in its place.  The explosions you'd hear if something was put back in the wrong spot! 

We really ribbed him about his habit of counting cutlery and glasses, and such. After a party or something, you'd get "Why are there only 5 knives in this box?"  - "Oh, Dad are you counting cutlery again?", we'd say.  Of course it was always just in the dishwasher or somewhere.  But he took our leg pulling in good humour. 

The other thing he wasn't all that good at was finding things.  But I think that's fairly normal for men isn't it?  He was famous for looking in the fridge and being unable to see past the first layer at the front.  Its called a "man look" in our house. 

When Tanya, our celebrant today, came round to plan this celebration, she said, Gosh, you really live in heaven amongst the trees. 

Dad was so proud of his home and so happy in life that she had hit the nail on the head. His paradise was here on earth with his family.  The piece I've chosen to play as we have a quiet think about him to end this ceremony is one that is very special to me.  It's the final movement of the Faure Requiem - 'In Paradisum'. 

I sang on this recording with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, so I chose it so I could say I sang for him, as it was probably the only way I was going to manage that today!  Mum and Dad came along to a concert in London when I sang in this work too, it was unusual as it had been set for a ballet performed by the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden.  The choir was in the pit with the orchestra.  Because I was on the end of the row of sopranos at the edge, I could just see what was going on above me on the stage.  It was the most beautiful ballet, and I'll always have an image of the men holding women aloft in their hands and slowly spinning as the we sang the 'In Paradisum'. 

I think its one of the most beautiful pieces of all time, and tended to have me in tears even before we lost Dad.  I had to pull over on the motorway and have a good cry once when I was listening to this, but they were tears of happiness at all the wonderful opportunities I'd had in life.

Strangely, Dad put on a CD at Christmas with this very movement on it, along with some of my other favourites.  I was so thrilled and did my usual trick of singing along and drowning it out. 

Dad sat and had his coffee and listened to it with me. So I have sung it just for him very recently. Little did I realise what significance that would soon have.

He'll remain in Paradise in our hearts and minds.  

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We hope that these eulogy examples for a father will inspire you to write something that you can be proud to share.  

You can find more information about how to write a eulogy or funeral speech here.  

Related Pages: 

Planning a Funeral - Step by Step

Funeral Flowers

Funeral Poems

Funeral Music

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