Writing Obituaries That Actually Mean Something
I've written more obituaries than I care to count. Most people treat them as a formality, a box to check before the funeral home takes over. That approach produces the same forgettable paragraph you see everywhere. The Mercer Brothers case is different. When families approach obituary writing with the understanding that these pieces need to carry real weight, the results change entirely. The Mercer Brothers framework isn't a strict formula. It's a principle-based approach that emerged from handling a situation where a standard obituary template completely failed the family. The brothers had been known in their community for decades, but the initial draft read like a resume. Dead name, dead dates, dead paragraph. Nothing lived in it. The family pushed back, not with anger, but with confusion about why no one could see what made their parents matter. That feedback changed how I structure obituaries going forward. The core insight is simple: spend less time on what happened and more time on what it meant. A chronological life summary is background information. Anyone can copy dates from a birth certificate. The work is in extracting the pattern, the consistent behaviors, the quiet choices that defined a person.
What I Actually Do
Before writing a single word, I ask the family three questions. What did this person do when nobody was watching? What would they have said about their own death? Who would be most surprised by how they're remembered? These aren't poetic questions. They're practical filters that cut through the noise of generic biographical data. The first question reveals character. The second reveals self-awareness or lack thereof. The third reveals what the family values most. I take those answers and build the obituary around them rather than forcing them into a template. Most professional obituary writers at funeral homes work the opposite direction. They fill out the form first, then try to squeeze in whatever color the family mentions. That order produces hollow results.
A Specific Problem I Encountered
Last year I handled an obituary for a man whose entire life was documented in public records. Tax filings, property records, business licenses, military service. Every detail was verifiable and accurate. The problem was that none of it described the person. I spent three hours trying to make government documents sound human. Nothing worked. The workaround was to ignore the paper trail entirely and interview his childhood friend who hadn't spoken to the family in twelve years. That friend provided three specific stories about loyalty, humor, and a consistent refusal to take advantage of anyone. I used those stories as the structural backbone and added only the essential factual details as supporting material. The resulting obituary ran two pages instead of the standard half-page format and received more personal responses than any piece I'd written in five years.
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Common Mistakes That Ruin Obituaries
Over-reliance on professional language. Funeral home templates use elevated phrasing because they have to cover every possible situation generically. That means phrases like "passed peacefully" and "survived by" appear in approximately ninety percent of commercial obituaries. Using this language doesn't help. It makes every obituary interchangeable. Listing achievements instead of demonstrating character. Writing "he was a successful businessman" tells readers nothing useful. Writing "he negotiated every contract himself and always made sure the other side felt heard" tells them who he actually was. One is a category. The other is a person. Including everyone. Family trees in obituaries tend to bloat into phone book entries. I recommend listing immediate surviving family and noting that extended family survives separately if necessary. The full genealogical record belongs in the memorial service program, not the obituary.
When This Approach Fails
The Mercer Brothers method requires actual family engagement. If the relatives are unwilling to share stories or reflect honestly about the deceased, you get nothing but dates and titles. I've encountered situations where family members requested I simply produce the standard format and move on. In those cases I comply because the alternative is no obituary at all. But those pieces are indistinguishable from thousands of others and serve no memorial function beyond legal notice. This approach also assumes access to someone who knew the deceased well enough to provide meaningful anecdotes. When that's not possible, the quality ceiling drops significantly. There's no workaround for that limitation.
Practical Timeline
A properly researched and written obituary takes between four and six hours including interviews and revision. Standard funeral home templates can be filled in twenty minutes. The difference matters for the people reading it, not for the production schedule. If you're working under an extremely tight timeline, at minimum spend thirty minutes asking the family the three questions I mentioned above. Even that brief investment improves the output substantially compared to the default template approach. The obituary is the first thing people read about someone who has died. It shapes how the community remembers them. Most people don't treat it with the seriousness it deserves until they see what happens when they don't.
