Obituary Examples for a Friend
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Writing about a friend, when you have no standing
Everything official runs through the family. The funeral home needs the next of kin to authorize an obituary, and newspapers ask who is placing it. As a friend you are almost always drafting for someone else’s signature, which is a real service and a slightly odd one: you write it, you hand it over, and you accept the edits. Offer the draft as a starting point rather than a finished text, and let a family member submit it. If they change your best sentence, let it go.
Timing matters more than wording. A death spreads through a friend group in an hour and through a family in a day, and the two do not move at the same speed. Before you post anything, ask the family who still has to be told and when they expect to be finished. Older relatives, an ex-spouse, a former colleague, a sibling overseas: these are the people who should not learn it from a feed. Waiting a day costs you nothing and spares somebody a great deal.
The form itself has no slot for you, which is why so many friends feel written out of a life they were central to. There are three usual places a friend appears. Named in the survivors list, after the family: “and her friend of fifty-one years, Patricia Vance.” Folded into the closing phrase: “and a wide circle of friends.” Or, when there is no surviving family, standing in for one, with the friends listed the way relatives would be. Ask the family which they want; most say yes when you ask directly and never think of it if you do not.
Finally, restraint. Friends often know what families have chosen not to print: an illness, an estrangement, a relationship that was never named, a stretch of years nobody discusses. An obituary is not the place to correct the record, and a memorial page is not the place to be the one who knew better. Write what is yours to write. If your version of your friend cannot go in the family’s obituary, write your own tribute, sign it, and let both exist.
Complete examples
Every name, town and employer below is invented. Copy whichever is closest to your situation and change the details line by line. Most people have a first draft inside twenty minutes that way.
Short notice placed by friends, with no surviving family
118 words · local newspaper notice
Gerald Anton Fischbach, 79, of Delford, Rhode Island, died on March 8, 2026, at Delford General Hospital.
Gerry was born on June 2, 1946 in Ashgrove, Washington, and lived in Delford for forty-one years. He repaired watches and clocks at a bench on Winter Street for most of them, and could diagnose a movement by holding it to his ear.
He leaves no surviving family. He leaves the Thursday breakfast table at the Delford Diner, the Tuesday chess club at the library, and the neighbors on Winter Street, who noticed when his light did not come on.
Friends are invited to gather at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, March 21, in the reading room at the Delford Public Library.
Standard obituary drafted by a friend for the family
241 words · funeral home website
Marguerite Adele Okonjo, 74, of Kestrel Falls, Michigan, died at home on January 12, 2026, after several months of illness.
Margie was born on May 30, 1951 in Kestrel Falls to Theodore and Adele Brandt. On the first day of her sophomore year at Kestrel Falls High School she was seated alphabetically beside Patricia Vance, and the two of them were not out of touch again for fifty-one years.
She taught second grade at Lincoln Elementary for thirty-three years. She was the teacher other teachers came to when a child was in trouble at home, and she kept a drawer of spare coats that she never once described as charity.
She married Emeka Okonjo in 1978. They raised two sons on Waverly Street, kept a vegetable garden neither of them fully controlled, and held an open house every New Year’s Day for four decades.
Margie read constantly, drove too fast, and answered the phone on the first ring at any hour.
She is survived by her husband, Emeka; her sons, Theodore Okonjo of Kestrel Falls and Daniel Okonjo (Lily) of Ashgrove, Washington; three grandchildren, Adele, June and Kofi; her brother, Martin Brandt; and her friend of fifty-one years, Patricia Vance.
A memorial service will be held at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, January 24, at Kestrel Falls Congregational Church, with a reception in the fellowship hall following.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks for donations to the Lincoln Elementary library fund.
Full obituary with chosen family as the survivors
360 words · memorial page
Victor Emmanuel Salas, 58, of Bellhaven, Oregon, died on April 30, 2026, at Bellhaven Mercy Hospital, with four of his people in the room and two more in the hallway.
Vic was born on September 12, 1967 in Marlow Bend, Texas. He left at nineteen and arrived in Bellhaven at twenty-two with a duffel bag, a case of cassettes, and a phone number written on the back of a receipt.
He cooked. He started on the line at the Ferry Street Grill, ran the kitchen at Aldene’s for eleven years, and for the last decade owned the small counter-service place on Third that he refused, on principle, to give a name. Everyone called it Vic’s. He hired people other kitchens would not, kept them far longer than that trade usually keeps anyone, and taught at least nine of them to run a kitchen of their own.
He was thirty-one years sober. He said so plainly when it helped somebody, and he answered his phone at any hour for anyone trying to get there.
Vic sang badly and loudly. He grew tomatoes on a fire escape. He remembered what you told him a year ago and asked how it had turned out. He was the one who came to the airport, the hospital, the courthouse, and the bad apartment at two in the morning.
He is survived by the family he chose and who chose him: Ana Okafor and Rosalie Devers of Bellhaven, his roommates at twenty-five and his sisters for thirty-three years; Marcus Hale, his partner in the restaurant and his closest friend; Dee Ramos, Anthony Cardoza and Junie Willett; nine godchildren, who between them have most of his recipes; and the Thursday night group at the Bellhaven Fellowship Hall. He was preceded in death by his mother, Rosa Salas, and his brother, Danilo.
A celebration of Vic’s life will be held at 4:00 p.m. on Saturday, May 9, at the Bellhaven Grange Hall. There will be food, because he would not have tolerated the alternative.
Donations may be made to the Bellhaven Community Kitchen. The family also asks, in his words, that you answer the phone when it rings.
Tribute a friend can post or read aloud
165 words · memorial page or social post, after the family has announced
I met Vic Salas in the summer of 1993, in a kitchen, over an argument about onions.
He was the best cook I have known and not much of a businessman, and he would have told you that himself, first, before you got the chance. He hired people nobody else would hire. He kept them. He taught me how to run a line and then how to run a room, and he never once made me feel that I owed him for it.
He answered the phone. That is the part I keep coming back to. Any hour, anyone, for thirty-three years.
His family has asked me to say that the service is Saturday at four at the Grange Hall, and that everyone is welcome. If you knew him, come. Bring something to eat, or don’t, he never cared, as long as you sat down.
I am not ready to write anything better than this, and he would have said this was plenty.
Marcus Hale
Phrases you can borrow
These are the lines families reach for when the plain facts are down and the obituary still feels flat.
“She is survived by her husband, Emeka; her sons, Theodore and Daniel; and her friend of fifty-one years, Patricia Vance.”
The cleanest way to put a friend in an obituary: last in the list, with the number of years. Ask the family first, and ask plainly. Most say yes.
“He is survived by the family he chose and who chose him: …”
For someone whose closest people were not relatives. Name them the way you would name relatives, with towns and with how they knew each other, so a stranger reading it understands the standing.
“and a wide circle of friends”
The traditional catch-all, and it is fine. It is also the line that makes friends feel invisible. If one or two friendships were central to the life, name those and use this for the rest.
“They met in 1974 over a broken washing machine on Culvert Street and were never out of touch again.”
How two people met is the most useful sentence you can write about a friendship. It fixes the length, the era and the accident of it in one line.
“Heaven gained an angel. Gone too soon. Fly high.”
All sincere, all first-thought, and none of them say anything about your friend in particular. One small true detail will do more than any of these. Use them in a card if you like, not in print.
“He asked about your mother every single time, and he remembered the answer.”
The kind of detail that makes a reader see a specific person. Look for the habit, not the adjective.
“She was the person I called first, for thirty years, about everything.”
Right for a signed tribute, wrong for the obituary. Obituaries stay in the third person and do not carry an “I.” Keep two documents rather than trying to make one do both jobs.
“In place of flowers, tell somebody the story about the boat.”
Works only when the family’s tone allows it, and when everyone knows the story. Check with them; the line lands very differently if the reader was not there.
“Friends are invited to gather at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday at the Delford Public Library.”
Wording for an informal gathering organized by friends rather than a funeral. “Invited to gather” signals that there is no service and nothing formal is expected of anyone.
“The family has asked me to say that everyone is welcome.”
Put this in a public tribute if you are sharing service details. It makes clear you are relaying the family’s wishes rather than issuing your own invitation.
What to watch for
- Ask before you write, and again before you publish · Offer to draft it rather than presenting a finished obituary. Send it as a document the family can change, and let one of them submit it to the funeral home or the paper. The permission you were given on Tuesday is not permission for Friday’s version.
- Do not be the one who announces it · Ask the family who still has to be told and when they expect to be done. An older relative or a former spouse learning it from a public post is a wound the family will remember longer than they remember the post.
- Check the legal name and the dates · Friends often know only a nickname and an approximate birthday. The obituary needs the legal name, the correct date of death, and the town of residence. Get all three from the family or the funeral home rather than from memory.
- Say nothing the family has not said · Cause of death, an illness, an estrangement, an addiction, a relationship they do not name in public. If it is not in what they have released, it does not go in what you write. This is the single most common way a well-meant tribute causes harm.
- Keep private details out of print · No home addresses, no dates of birth combined with a mother’s maiden name, no travel plans for the family. Published obituaries are read by people looking for an empty house and for the answers to bank security questions.
- Be careful with recovery and other anonymous fellowships · Recovery fellowships ask members to keep personal anonymity at the level of press and media. Some families do mention it because the person spoke openly in life. If you are unsure what your friend would have wanted, describe it obliquely, as a Thursday night group and the people in it.
- Write your own tribute separately · The obituary belongs to the family and stays in the third person. Your tribute is yours, is signed, and can say “I.” Keeping them apart means you do not have to fight for your sentences inside somebody else’s document.
- Give the family the file, and the passwords · If you set up a memorial page, collect photographs, or run a donation link, hand over the login and the money trail early. Friends often build these in the first week and then become the only person who can change them.
The general rules on length, the order of survivors and what to leave out are on the main obituary examples page, and the step-by-step method is in how to write an obituary.
Other relationships
Common questions
Can I write my friend’s obituary?
Where do friends belong in the survivors list?
Is it all right to post about the death on social media?
The family’s obituary left me out. What should I do?
There is no family. Who handles the arrangements?
How do I write about a friendship other people will not understand?
Keep reading
- How to Write an ObituaryA calm, six-step way to write an obituary when you don’t know where to start, with the exact information to gather and full examples.
- Obituary TemplatesSix fill-in-the-blank obituary templates: traditional, short, newspaper, celebration of life, military and faith. Free to use and copy.
- Short Obituary ExamplesShort obituary examples between 50 and 150 words, written to fit newspaper line limits without losing the person.
- Obituary FormatThe standard obituary format explained section by section, with the order newspapers and funeral homes expect and how long each part should be.