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.”