How to Write an Obituary for a Brother: A Guide With Examples

There is something particular about writing an obituary for a brother. You are not summarizing someone you admired from a distance. You are writing about the person who was there for all of it — the person who knew the house you grew up in, the nicknames, the arguments nobody else would understand, the version of you that existed before anyone else was watching.

And you are being asked to put that into four hundred words, usually within a day or two, usually while you are not sleeping well.

This guide is meant to make that smaller. Not easy, but smaller. Work through it in order, and you will have something true by the end.

Start by gathering the facts, before you try to write anything

The hardest part of an obituary is not the writing. It is sitting with a blank page while also trying to remember your brother's exact job title in 1994. Separate those two jobs. Collect the plain information first, in a list, with no pressure to make it sound like anything:

• His full name, including any middle name, and the nickname everyone actually used
• Age, date of birth, and place of birth
• Date of death, and the city where he died
• Parents' names, including your mother's maiden name
• Spouse or partner, and the date they married if that applies
• Children, grandchildren, and stepchildren by name
• Siblings — including you, and including any who died before him
• Schools, military service, and the work he did
• Churches, clubs, teams, or causes he gave his time to
• Service details: date, time, location, and where to send donations

Call a cousin or an aunt for the parts you are not sure about. People are usually relieved to be asked for something concrete.

Decide how long it needs to be

If it is going in a newspaper, ask about the word limit and the cost per line before you write — many papers charge by the inch, and families are sometimes surprised. A short print notice runs 80 to 150 words. An online obituary on a funeral home's site usually has no real limit, and 250 to 500 words is a comfortable length that does not ask too much of a reader.

You can write both. Write the fuller version first, then cut it down for print. Cutting is easier than expanding.

A simple template to get the first draft out

Fill this in badly. That is the point — a bad draft is something you can fix, and a blank page is not.

[Full name], [age], of [city], died on [date] at [place or "at home"]. He was born [date] in [city] to [parents' names].

[First name] graduated from [school] and spent [number] years as a [occupation] at [employer]. He married [spouse] in [year]. He loved [two or three real things].

He is survived by [list]. He was preceded in death by [list].

A service will be held [day, date, time] at [location]. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to [organization].

Then add the one thing only a sibling could write

A template gives you a record. It does not give anyone your brother. The line that makes an obituary feel like a person is almost always specific and small — and as his brother or sister, you are the one who has those.

Not "he had a great sense of humor." Instead: he called every one of his nieces "boss." He answered the phone the same way for forty years. He could not pass a hardware store. He kept the same terrible truck running out of pure stubbornness and would tell you, unprompted, how many miles were on it.

One or two of those details, placed in the middle of the obituary, will do more than a paragraph of adjectives. If you are stuck, try finishing this sentence: You could not be around him for ten minutes without —

Three examples

These are generic, written to show shape rather than to be copied word for word. Your brother's version should sound less polished than these and more like him.

A short print notice

Daniel R. Whitaker, 58, of Marion, died October 4 after a short illness. Born March 11, 1968, to Robert and Eileen Whitaker, Dan spent thirty years as a lineman for the county electric co-op and never once complained about a storm call. He is survived by his wife Teresa; his daughters Claire and Beth; and his brother Michael. Visitation will be Thursday at 6 p.m. at Holloway Funeral Home, with a service Friday at 10 a.m.

A fuller online obituary

James "Jimmy" Alvarez, 44, died September 28 at his home in Hartford, with his family around him. He was born June 2, 1982, in New Britain, the second of Maria and Hector Alvarez's three sons.

Jimmy went to Central High School, where he played baseball badly and loudly, and then spent his working life in kitchens — the last eleven years as a sous chef at Marbury's, where he was known for feeding the staff before he fed anyone else. He married Dana Reyes in 2009.

He was the brother who remembered birthdays. He kept a running list in his phone and called rather than texted, always too early in the morning. He taught all four of his nephews to throw a curveball and insisted, incorrectly, that he had invented the grip.

He is survived by his wife Dana; his son Mateo; his mother Maria; and his brothers Hector Jr. and Luis. He was preceded in death by his father.

A celebration of life will be held Saturday, October 10, at 2 p.m. at Riverside Park. Donations in his memory may be made to the Hartford food bank.

For a brother who died young

Thomas Ellis Carraway, 26, died August 19 in a car accident outside Pell City. He was born April 7, 2000, to Ellis and Joanne Carraway, and he was, from the start, the loud one.

Tom was two years into an apprenticeship as an electrician and was saving for a house he had already picked out. He fished badly and often. He answered every text with a single word.

He is survived by his parents and his sister Hannah, who was his first phone call about everything. A service will be held Saturday at 11 a.m. at First Baptist Church of Pell City.

Common mistakes worth avoiding

• Listing every job and address. A résumé is not a tribute. Keep the work that mattered to him and cut the rest.
• Leaving out a sibling or a stepchild. This is the detail families remember for years. Read the survivors list aloud to one other relative before you submit it.
• Over-explaining the cause of death. You owe no one this. "After a long illness," "unexpectedly," or nothing at all are all complete answers.
• Writing it entirely alone. Send the draft to one person who loved him too. They will catch the thing you forgot and tell you the rest is good enough, which you probably need to hear.
• Submitting without checking dates and spellings. Names, dates, and the service time are the parts that must be right. Everything else is style.

If the words will not come

Some days the obituary will not get written, and that is not a failure of love. If you are up against a deadline, write the template version and submit it. The fuller remembering can happen in the eulogy, at the service, or at the kitchen table a month from now, which is often where it actually happens anyway.

And if you find there is more to say than an obituary can hold — a whole shared childhood that will not fit into four hundred words — some families turn that into something they can keep. At Their Life Song, we take the stories a family tells us about someone and write an original song from them, for families who want the remembering to live somewhere beyond the page. It is simply one option among many, and the obituary in front of you right now is enough on its own.

Whatever you write, it will be read by people who loved him and who already know. You are not auditioning. You are just putting his name down carefully, which is its own kind of care.

Related reading

• How to Write an Obituary: A Step-by-Step Guide With Examples
• How to Write a Eulogy for a Brother: A Guide With Examples
• Custom Memorial Songs: The Complete Guide