Death Anniversary Speech: What to Say at 40 Days and One Year

The funeral came with a script, and mostly someone else wrote it. The gatherings that follow do not. On the 40th day, at the first anniversary, or at the graveside when the headstone is finally up, the family sits down together, the room goes quiet, and people look at whoever invited them.

Perhaps that will be you: you have been asked for a death anniversary speech, or you are hosting and know one will be expected. Here are six short speeches to adapt, from the meal on the 40th day to a guest asked for a few words without warning. After them comes what to say on a death anniversary itself: short lines to send to someone carrying the day alone. Every speech and every person in them is invented, so borrow the shape and put in your own streets, dishes and dates.

The Gatherings After the Funeral, and Who Speaks

A death anniversary speech is a short talk, usually one to three minutes, that the host or a family member gives at one of the gatherings after the funeral. These gatherings are not a second funeral. They are smaller, twenty people rather than two hundred, mostly family, and they are built around food: lunch at home, a parish hall with an urn of tea, a temple, or a circle of people at a cemetery passing round a flask. The tone has moved, too. By the 40th day, and more so by the year, many people have stories they want to tell, and some of those stories are funny.

The person who speaks is usually the host: the widow or widower, the eldest son or daughter, whoever sent the invitations. If a priest, a rabbi or a monk leads a service first, that part is theirs. The family's part is short: thank people, say one true thing about the person, and get everyone to the table. Sometimes a friend is asked to add a few words, often on the spot.

The First Year, Tradition by Tradition

Most traditions mark more than one day in the first year. The last column is where a few words from the family usually fit, if they fit at all.

This table describes; it does not prescribe. Families of the same faith differ, and so do neighbouring villages. Before you plan anything, ask whoever keeps the customs in your family: the priest, the rabbi, the temple, the imam, or the aunt who always knows.

How a Death Anniversary Speech Is Built

Whatever the day, a death anniversary speech that works usually has four parts, in this order.

• Thanks. To everyone who came, and by name to the few who carried the family this year: the neighbour who did the school run for a month, the cousin who sat on hold with the bank. At a Mass, thank the celebrant first.
• The news they missed. What has happened since: a grandchild born, a house sold, a dog that still waits by the door at six. Most guests want to know how the family is doing and are too polite to ask.
• One story that surfaced after the funeral. Funerals shake stories loose. Someone tells you at the wake a thing you never knew, or you find a note in a coat pocket in March. One of these is worth five that the whole room already knows.
• One thing you carry forward. Something you do now because of them, said plainly. Then end with a raised glass, a quiet moment, or simply an invitation to eat.

For the main speaker, one to three minutes is right. At about 130 words a minute, the pace of someone reading slowly to a room, that is 130 to 390 words, a page or two in large type. With the food going cold, shorter is kinder.

It is not a second eulogy. Nobody needs the dates, the career and the list of grandchildren again. For the funeral itself, start with our guide to writing a eulogy, or the one- and two-minute pieces in short eulogy examples. Words for the person who died, rather than for the room, belong in a letter: see writing a letter to someone who died.

In the First Weeks: The 7th, 9th or 40th Day

At a 40-day memorial, the host's words can be simple: thank everyone for coming back, tell one story that has surfaced since the funeral, and ask the room to stand for a moment before the meal. This speech is from a son at that meal for his mother, about two and a half minutes aloud.

Thank you for coming back. Some of you have driven a long way twice in six weeks. I know what that costs, and so did Mum.

At the funeral I thought I would be the one telling stories about her. Instead I spent the whole afternoon being told them. So I want to give three of them back to you.

A woman called Halina, who I'd never met, told me that Mum walked her home from the bus stop on Linden Road every Thursday for three years, after Halina's eyesight went. Mum never mentioned it. Not once.

Her old manager from the bakery told me she was the only person on the early shift who could get the ovens going in January, and that she sang while she did it. I never heard my mother sing in forty-one years. Apparently it was ABBA, at five in the morning, and apparently she was good.

And my cousin Daria told me that when she left home at seventeen with nowhere to go, it was Mum who sent the first month's rent, with a note that said, "Don't pay me back. One day, do it for someone else."

I thought I knew her completely: her slippers, her handwriting, the way she said my full name when I was in trouble. It turns out there was a second life of small kindnesses going on at the edges of the one I could see, and she kept it quiet because she thought it was nobody's business.

I can't be her, and I can't sing either. But on Thursdays I am going to do one thing for someone who will never know it was me, and I will think of a bus stop.

Before we eat, would you stand with me for a moment. You don't need to say anything. Just think of her, the one you knew.

[Wait until the room is still, and count to ten.]

Thank you. Please sit down and eat. She would be appalled if anything went cold.

Why it works. It hands back stories the guests gave him, so people hear their own memories said aloud, and the one real surprise, the singing, carries the laugh. The promise is small and exact: Thursdays, not a vow to be a better person. Standing gives everyone something to do with what they feel before the plates come round.

For the 7th or 9th day. The funeral may be only days behind you. Keep the thanks, one story and the moment of standing: about a minute, or 130 words. If no stories have surfaced yet, use one you heard at the funeral, and say who told it to you.

After a Memorial Mass or Service

In many Catholic families a Mass comes within the first weeks: the missa de sétimo dia in Brazil, the month's mind in Ireland, the Mass that closes the novenario in Mexico. This speech is a daughter's for her father, for the end of a month's mind Mass or the lunch after it, about a minute and a half aloud. For a seventh-day Mass, make "a month ago" into "last week", and cut the oranges.

Father Tomás, thank you for this Mass, and for visiting Dad in the hospital in May. He talked about it for a week.

On behalf of my mother, my brothers and me, thank you all for coming. A month ago this church was full, and I could hardly see any of you. Today I can, so let me thank you properly.

Thank you to the people who fed us. There were eleven lasagnes. We counted. Rosa, your soup got my mother through those first days. And somebody, who has still not owned up, left a bag of oranges on our step every Saturday. We know it was one of you.

Thank you to the men from the bowling club who carried him, and to everyone who has rung my mother in the evenings, which are the hardest part of her day.

Dad would want me to keep this short, so here is the one sentence about him: he fixed your gate before you noticed it was broken, and then denied it was him.

There is lunch in the hall, and far too much of it, because my mother cooked. Please come, and stay as long as you like. If he ever fixed your gate, my mother would love to hear about it.

Ask the priest first, and early. At a Catholic Mass the homily is given by the priest or a deacon, never by a lay person. Church rules prefer that lay people speak outside Mass, and allow a few words after the Prayer after Communion only for a serious reason, as Catholic Answers explains, so many priests suggest the meal instead. Ask when you book the Mass, not in the sacristy five minutes before. If the family is choosing the readings, choose them with him, and keep the thank-you for the end.

The same speech works almost unchanged after a Protestant memorial service, or at a lunch with no service at all. Cut the line to the priest and the church, and keep the oranges.

A First Death Anniversary Speech

The first anniversary is often the biggest gathering since the funeral and the least formal: lunch at home, the good plates, children under the table. This one-year memorial speech is from a husband at that lunch for his wife, about three minutes aloud, built on the year of firsts.

A year ago this week most of you were in this room with plates on your knees, and I don't remember a word anyone said to me. So thank you for coming back, and for letting me say something this time.

People warned me about the year of firsts. They were right that the firsts come. Nobody told me how small most of them would be. I want to tell you about three.

The first was the ninth of March, Lena's birthday. I bought the cake out of habit, lemon, from the shop on the corner, and I was halfway home before I understood what I had done. I took it next door to Agnes, and we ate it standing up in her kitchen. She told me about the day Lena backed the car into her wall and came round an hour later with a lemon cake to say sorry. It was the best hour I had that month.

The second was in April. A few weeks before she died, Lena planted bulbs all along the back fence and would not tell me what they were. One morning I opened the curtains and the whole fence was yellow. Tulips, hundreds of them. I have decided she planted them for me.

The third was in August. Our granddaughter Pia said her first word, and it was "Nana". Not Mama, not Dada, and not Grandad, who was holding her at the time. Pia was four months old when Lena died, too small to remember her. She knows her from the photo on the fridge, which her mother points to every morning.

I have learned to do a lot this year that Lena always did. I know which night the bins go out. But the thing I am proudest of is a phone call. For forty years, every Sunday at six, Lena rang her sister Inês in Porto. In February I rang instead. I have rung every Sunday since. Mostly we talk about Lena. Inês could not fly over today, so I will say it here: Inês, I'll ring at six.

There is food in the kitchen, Lena's recipes, made badly by me and properly by our daughters. Please eat. And if you have a story about her I haven't heard, I would like it. I am collecting them.

Why it works. Every first has a month and an object: a lemon cake, a fence of tulips, a word. None is the obvious first, the empty side of the bed, and each turns an absence into something that arrived. It ends on something he does rather than feels, because people who have worried about him all year want to know he is managing.

To adapt it. Change the names and the pronouns, swap "Nana" and "Grandad", and it works for a wife, a husband or a partner of any gender. Use your own three firsts, in date order. If one was hard rather than sweet, say so; the speech need not pretend it was a good year.

At the Graveside or a Headstone Unveiling

Some families mark the first year at the grave. In Jewish families this is often the unveiling, when the headstone is dedicated and the cloth over it is removed. It usually comes within or at the end of the first year, at any point after shiva; customs vary, and the family sets the date with the rabbi and the cemetery. The service has psalms and prayers, and anyone the family chooses may remove the cloth. Some rabbis welcome a eulogy, while Reform guidance suggests one or two short, loving stories instead. Ask the rabbi what fits.

In South Africa many families, not only Jewish ones, hold a tombstone unveiling; others simply gather at the grave on the anniversary, with nothing planned but flowers. This speech is from a granddaughter at the unveiling of her grandfather's headstone, about two minutes aloud.

Thank you all for coming out on a cold morning. Grandpa would have made a remark about the cold, and then given somebody his scarf.

It has taken the family most of a year to agree on what to carve on his stone. I have been asked to read it to you, and to tell you why we chose it.

Under his name and his dates, it says: "There is time. Sit down."

Those were the words he said to every one of us at his front door. You arrived late and out of breath, apologising for the traffic, and he took your coat and said, "There is time. Sit down." He said it to my father on the morning of his wedding, when Dad was pacing the hall. He said it to me the night before my first exam. He said it to the plumber.

We had other ideas. Grandma wanted a line of poetry. My uncle wanted "Beloved husband, father and grandfather", which is true, and which is on half the stones in this row. In the end Grandma said what Grandpa would have said: that this was all taking far too long, and we should sit down. So we chose his words.

I like that they are here, where people walk past in a hurry with flowers and car keys. Strangers will read them. Some of them might slow down.

Grandpa, the stone is up. There is time. We will sit with you for a while.

Reading the inscription aloud, and saying why the family chose it, is this speech's own device. At some unveilings the rabbi reads the inscription as part of the service, so ask who will. It works because the stone is what everyone is looking at. If yours carries only names and dates, say instead why you chose the place. The same shape makes a tombstone unveiling speech for a mother or a grandmother: read her line from the stone, and tell the story behind it.

Opening and Closing the Meal as the Host

The host speaks more than once, briefly each time. In Japan the host greets the guests four times: at the start and end of the memorial service, and at the start and end of the meal. A Japanese etiquette guide (in Japanese) suggests a minute at most for each, which is good practice anywhere. These are the host's words for a memorial gathering, written for a mother; change the name and the pronoun, and at 40 days make "a year" into "forty days".

The welcome, about 30 seconds.

Thank you all for coming. It is a year since we lost [Name], and the one thing we were sure of was that we wanted the people who knew her in one room again. Some of you have come a long way, and some of you have knocked on our door every week since. Thank you for both. We will eat soon, but first I would like to hear from you.

Inviting others to speak.

If something about her has come back to you this year, a thing she said or a place you went with her, this is the time to tell it. [Aunt's name], you knew her longest. Would you start us off?

Ask that first person a few days before, so the invitation does not land on a silent room.

A raised glass, or a quiet moment.

Would you raise your glass, or just hold it, or bow your head, whichever is yours. To [Name], and to everyone in this room, who got us this far.

[A short silence.] Thank you.

In Japan the memorial toast is called kenpai, and it is not a cheer: glasses are raised quietly to chest height and never clinked. An elder relative usually gives it rather than the host; at a family-only gathering the host may give it, or it may be left out. If you are hosting, ask an uncle or an aunt well before the day.

The close, under 30 seconds.

Thank you for today, and for everything since the funeral. [Name] would have looked at the table, decided there was too much food, and sent everyone home with some, so please take a box on your way out. Drive carefully. And do not wait for an occasion to come back.

If nobody speaks. Let the silence sit; a quiet room full of people who loved someone is not a failure. Then go first yourself, with a story you kept back, or turn to the person you asked beforehand. If the room still does not want to talk, say kindly: "Then let's eat, and you can tell me your stories over coffee." People often find their story ten minutes later, cup in hand.

If You Are Asked to Say a Few Words as a Guest

A guest asked for a few words, on the spot or with a day's warning, has one job: to give the family a piece of the person they did not have. This is a colleague at a first-anniversary lunch, under a minute aloud.

I'm Carol. I worked with Desmond at the depot for eleven years.

Joyce, Callum, Nia: he talked about you every single day, so I feel I know you far better than you know me.

One story. Every December he brought in a tin of his mother's biscuits, put it on the shared desk, and stuck a note on the lid: "Count them. I did." Nobody ever took more than two. I took three, once, and he knew by lunchtime. He never said a word. The next morning there was a single biscuit on my keyboard, wrapped in a napkin, with a note: "Your fourth."

That's all I wanted to say. Thank you for letting us come today.

• Speak to the family. Use their names, and say in one line who the person was to you, so they know who you are.
• One story. Pick one they may not have heard: from work, from the club, from before they were born.
• No advice. Not about grief, and not about what he would have wanted.
• No comparing losses. Your own father, or someone who had it worse: keep them for another day.
• Sit down within a minute. About 120 words. If you were asked without warning, your name and the story are plenty.

Death Anniversary Messages to Send on the Day

Not everyone will be at the table, and some of the people closest to the loss, a widowed mother, a brother far away, will spend the day itself on their own. For them a message matters more than any speech.

A good death anniversary message has four parts and fits in a text: the name, one memory, thinking of you today, and no reply needed. The name, because people stop saying it and the family notices. The last part, because a grieving person who must answer every message has been handed a job. Eight examples follow, by who you are writing to and when; swap the words in square brackets for your own.

• To a widowed mother. "Mum, a year today. I keep seeing Dad [at the barbecue, refusing all help]. I'm thinking of you all day. No need to ring back; I'll come round after work."
• To a friend. "[Name], I know today is a year since your [mum]. I still think of her every time I [pass the bakery on Mill Street]. Thinking of you today. You don't need to answer this."
• To a brother or sister. "Thinking of Dad today, and of you. Every time I [reverse into a tight space], I hear him say '[Plenty of room, plenty of room]'. No reply needed. I just didn't want you to have this day on your own."
• At 40 days. "Forty days today since [Name] died. All morning I've been remembering [her laugh at our wedding]. Thinking of you and the whole family. Nothing needed back."
• At one year. "A year today. Hardly a week has gone by without someone telling me a story about [Name], and this week it was [the time he drove to the coast with the handbrake on]. Thinking of you. No need to reply."
• To family far away. "I know you wish you could be with us for [Name] today. We'll tell your story about [the wedding cake and the dog] at the table, and I'll send you a photo of everyone afterwards. Thinking of you, all that way off."
• To a colleague. "I know today is a year since [your dad]. There's a coffee on your desk, and if you'd like a walk at lunch, I'm free."
• A public post, from the family. "One year today since we lost [Name]. Still [setting out two cups in the morning]. Thank you to everyone who kept checking on us long after the funeral. If you have a story about [him], we would love to read it here."

Lines that land badly on the day. "Time heals." "You must be feeling better by now." "I know exactly how you feel." Each asks the grieving person to agree with you, on a day when agreeing is hard work.

Send it in the morning, on the day itself. If you can, offer one thing you will really do, and name the day: "I'll bring dinner on Thursday." Before you put the phone down, add next year's date to your calendar with the person's name on it; fewer people will have it written down next year. If the family keeps a lunar or Hebrew date, ask them for next year's. If the first Christmas comes before the anniversary, the same kind of message helps then too, and our guide to the first Christmas without a loved one has examples for it.

For the Relatives Who Could Not Come

Every gathering has someone missing besides the person it is for: the aunt who lives abroad, the grandfather too ill to travel. If you give a speech, they can still hear it in your voice. Record it after everyone has gone home and send it to them as a letter on Goodbye App. A letter there is your written words and one recording, delivered by email to the people you choose. You pick the day and the hour it goes out, on your own clock, so it can go out tonight, or tomorrow morning. If you want it to sound like you rather than the kitchen, our guide to recording your voice for your family has the simple version. The app cannot play anything at the gathering itself; it is for the people who were not in the room.

You can also write ahead. In the quiet week after an anniversary, write a few lines about this year to a widowed parent, or to your brothers and sisters, and set them to go out in the week the date comes round again. You can schedule a letter up to 30 years ahead. One letter is one delivery, so next year's anniversary is a letter of its own, and the year after is another.

It is free, in 15 languages, on the web and Android, and private until it is sent. If you switch on the optional inactivity release, letters can also go out earlier, once your account has been quiet for a period you set between 3 and 45 days. And if you have started thinking about the anniversaries your own family will keep one day, open when I die letters are a gentle place to begin.

Common Questions

What should you say on a death anniversary? The person's name, one memory of them, and that you are thinking of whoever is carrying the day. That is enough. The family does not need wisdom from you; they need to hear that someone else has the date in their head too.

Do we have to hold a gathering? No. Plenty of families mark the day quietly: a visit to the grave, a call between siblings, a walk the person liked, or nothing planned at all. Many Muslim families do not hold fixed-day gatherings, and nor do many others. A gathering is one way to keep the date, not a measure of love.

Who speaks at the 40th day? In most families, the host: a son, a daughter, the widow or widower, or whoever brought everyone together. Others speak if the host invites them.

How long should a death anniversary speech be? One to three minutes for the main speaker, which is about 130 to 390 words at a slow 130 words a minute. A guest should come in under a minute.

Is it all right to laugh? Yes. Most rooms are readier for it than they were at the funeral. Let the laugh come from the person, not from a joke you brought, and follow it with something true, so the room can come back down gently.

Is the anniversary counted from the death or from the funeral? Most traditions count from the day of death. Jewish shloshim, the first 30 days, counts from the burial, and the Catholic month's mind can follow either. Lunar and Hebrew dates move each year, so ask the family's priest, rabbi, temple or elders for this year's.

Can someone else read my words? Yes. Write the speech out in full, in large type. Before you start, give a copy to someone you trust, so they can carry on if your voice goes, or read the whole thing for you. You can say so at the start: "My brother is going to read this for me." The techniques in reading a eulogy without crying work just as well a year later.

Should you post about a death anniversary on social media? If the loss is in your own family, a post on the day gives everyone one place to share a story. If it is someone else's loss, leave the first post to the family, and comment on theirs rather than starting your own.