Words.

I'm writing my mother's eulogy. I started writing it before she died, but I keep scratching it out and starting again, because it's the hardest thing I've ever had to write. I've been scribbling things for money for a while now. I've been reading them to audiences, and I'm reasonably good at it. But this writing, this potential writing, because I haven't done it yet, presents a specific set of challenges. 

It has to be short. Damage limitation, really. The less time I'm up there the less likely I'll dissolve into floods of tears. The funeral will be live-streamed to the Higgins diaspora - we are legion and we are international - and they don't need to see me buckled with snotty grief at the microphone. Also, it has to be short because I don't want to extend my mother's funeral any longer than I have to. 

It has to be light. For many of the same reasons. If I go out and talk about the pain and sadness of my loss, then I'll be wet-cheeked before the end of the first sentence. Also, its about her not me. She would be outraged if I show-boated my misery throughout the service like a grieving diva. The vengeful haunting would begin in earnest. Besides, I have my brothers and sister to think about. I'm representing for the family, so I have to get it right. So far it has been my sole responsibility, and it has to be good, for them as well as her. 

The eulogy should be between three and seven minutes long, and no more than a thousand words to make it viable. Those are the limitations I've set myself - condensing my mother's eighty years into a thousand words, and trying not to make it look like I'm composing her CV.

 There are on-line guides, of course. There are always on-line guides. They advise you to mention "nicknames" and places where people have worked and lived. I think a list of addresses and workplaces would make for a thin eulogy. And my mum wasn't like that anyway. She was like a twister, sweeping up Dorothy's house, and landing it on some poor unsuspecting witch in the middle of nowhere. She was a major event. She wasn't where she lived or what she took home. She existed outside those parameters. She was bigger than a thousand words. 

But all I have is a thousand words. So they have to be the right thousand words.