Writing about your mother, specifically
Most obituary advice is written for anyone. A few things, though, come up again and again when the person who died is your mother — and they are usually the reason a draft stalls.
Do not open with "devoted mother"
It is the single most common phrase in American obituaries, and because it appears everywhere it now says almost nothing. It is also, quietly, the reason so many obituaries for mothers read as interchangeable: the phrase gets used in place of a description, and then the description never gets written.
Says nothingShe was a devoted mother who always put her family first and will be dearly missed by all who knew her.
Says herShe kept a running list of everyone's birthdays on the inside of a kitchen cabinet door, in pencil, going back to 1968.
You do not have to be a writer to do this. You only have to stop reaching for a bigger word and reach for a smaller fact.
Write down her life before she was your mother
This is the most common regret families report afterwards. Children tend to write the mother they knew, which begins the year they were born — and the first twenty or thirty years of her life vanish from the record.
Ask, or remember: what did she do before you? What did she want to do? Where did she work, what did she leave behind to come here, what did she give up, and what did she keep? A woman who was a switchboard operator at nineteen, or who crossed an ocean at nine, or who was the only woman in her graduating class, was somebody long before she was somebody's mother.
If she raised a family full-time, describe it as work
There is a habit of writing "she was a homemaker" and moving on quickly, as though it needed an apology. It does not. Say what it actually involved: how many children, on what income, through which years, while doing what else. Specifics turn a job title into a life.
Use her maiden name
Include it in the full name, and say who her parents were. People from her hometown, her school friends, and former colleagues may know her by no other name, and an obituary is partly a notice — it has to be findable by the people who need to find it.
If the relationship was complicated
Not everyone is writing about a mother they were close to, and a surprising number of people who search for a sample obituary are quietly stuck on exactly this. It is worth saying plainly: an obituary is a public notice, not a verdict. You are not required to write warmth you did not feel, and you are also not obliged to say anything untrue.
The usual solution is to stay factual. Name, dates, family, the verifiable outline of a life, the service details. A short, correct, unsentimental obituary is entirely normal in print and no reader will draw conclusions from it. What tends to be regretted later is not the restraint — it is anything sharp that was put in permanently at two in the morning.
Get the survivor list checked before anything else
With mothers this list is usually long: children, their spouses, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, siblings. It is also where families are hurt. Send that paragraph to two other relatives and ask them to read it for omissions, not for style. It takes ten minutes and prevents the thing people remember for years.
Questions people ask
How long should an obituary for a mother be?
Between 200 and 400 words for a standard newspaper obituary, which is what the second example above is. A short death notice runs 50 to 100 words. If it is going on a funeral home page or a memorial website instead, length costs nothing and 500 to 800 words is perfectly normal.
Should I include her maiden name?
Yes, in almost every case. It is how her school friends, her hometown, and her former colleagues will recognise her. The usual form is first name, maiden name, married surname — "Rosalind Ferraro Blake" — or the maiden name in parentheses, "Rosalind (Ferraro) Blake". Either is standard.
How do I list children from more than one marriage?
List them together, in the ordinary way, without separating them into categories. Stepchildren are named as children unless the family prefers otherwise. If the children's surnames differ, that is entirely unremarkable in print and needs no explanation.
Do I have to say how she died?
No. There is no legal or editorial requirement to state a cause of death. "Passed away peacefully", "after a long illness", "unexpectedly", or simply the date are all complete, and all common. The fourth example above gives no cause at all.
Do I name every grandchild?
Either way is standard. Large families usually give a count — "eleven grandchildren and six great-grandchildren" — because naming twenty people costs real money by the line and risks a spelling error. Smaller families often name each one. If you give a count, count carefully and count twice.
What if she wasn't religious?
Then leave religion out entirely. The second and fourth examples above have none. "A celebration of her life will be held" is the usual phrasing where a family wants a gathering without a service.
Can I just use one of these examples?
Yes — that is what they are for. They are fictional and free to adapt. Copy whichever is closest, replace every detail with your own, and read the result aloud before you send it. Do the same with the tool above if you would rather start from a blank form than from someone else's sentences.