--- title: "See their whole life, year by year, before you write" description: "Glow's timeline lays the family's photos out year by year, undated ones included, so you can see which chapters you have and which are thin." author: "The Glow Editors" category: "Ask Them Now" date: 2026-09-23T17:57:37.155Z canonical: "https://tryglow.ai/features/family-timeline-for-the-reluctant-eulogist" --- # See their whole life, year by year, before you write > Glow's timeline lays the family's photos out year by year, undated ones included, so you can see which chapters you have and which are thin. It is Thursday. The service is Saturday. You said yes - or someone assumed you would - and now you are sitting with a blank page and a grief that makes it hard to think in straight lines. You do not need a template. You need a way to see the person's life in order, so you can find the stories that are actually worth saying out loud. That is what Glow's year-by-year timeline does. It arranges the family's photos in the order they happened, so the shape of a life becomes visible - and speakable. ## What you get - A year-by-year view of the person's life, built from dated photos in the family archive, so you can see at a glance which years you have stories for and which feel thin. - "Needs a note" cards that flag which photos still have no name or story attached - so you know exactly where to ask an aunt or a sibling to fill the gap before Saturday. - A "Both at age N" comparison that places you and the person side by side at the same age - the kind of detail that lands in a eulogy because it is true and specific and no one else would have said it. - A Today feed that surfaces the archive like a living record, showing what the family has already added and where the quiet years still need a voice. - Undated prints held in the timeline alongside dated ones, so the photographs that never had a year on the back are not lost - they are just waiting for someone who recognises them. - A family tree of the people already named in the archive, organised by birth year, so when you stand up on Saturday and say "she was shaped by" - you have the names ready. ## How it works Scan a handful of photos tonight - the ones already on your phone count. Glow places them into the timeline year by year, and undated prints wait there until someone adds a year. If you have a shoebox of prints to work through, [scanning old family photos without losing a weekend](/blog/how-to-scan-old-family-photos) walks you through a method that keeps the process manageable. Open the timeline and move through it year by year. Where the family has dated a photo, you see the decade take shape. Where the Today feed shows a "needs a note" card, you know to pick up the phone and ask someone who was there. Add what you know. A name, a year, a single sentence about what was happening in that photo. Each addition fills in a year you might otherwise have skipped over on Saturday. When you sit down to write your remarks, the timeline is there. The photos are in order. The names are attached. You are not starting from nothing - you are starting from a life, arranged. ## The parts of a eulogy that are hardest to find alone **An opening line that is true, not tidy.** The opening is where you either find your footing or lose it. One specific detail - the Tuesday morning phone calls, the way he always ordered the same thing - does more work than a paragraph about what a wonderful person they were. **The right story.** Not the most dramatic one. The one that shows who they actually were, at a particular moment, in a particular room. The timeline helps you find the year, and the year helps you find the story. **The shape of their life over time.** A eulogy that jumps around leaves people lost. Moving from childhood to the years that shaped them to who they became gives the room something to hold onto - and gives you a path to walk without losing your place. If you want more guidance on structure and what to say, [how to write a eulogy when you don't know where to start](/blog/how-to-write-a-eulogy) covers the full process step by step. **What not to say.** If the death was complicated - a suicide, an overdose, an estrangement that was never resolved - you are not obligated to explain it from the podium. You are only obligated to the truth of who they were. *If you are carrying something heavier right now, the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available by call or text, any hour.* ## Write from what you actually have Scan a handful of photos tonight and open the timeline. The first thing you will see is the shape of a life - the years that are full, the years that need a note. That shape is your structure. You already know this person better than any prompt could. What you need is a way to see what you know. The timeline gives you that, and Saturday gives you a deadline. Start tonight. And when the service is behind you, [the first weeks after a parent dies](/blog/first-weeks-after-a-parent-dies) can help you understand what needs attention next - and what is safe to set aside for now. **Join the founding families** and build the archive that makes a eulogy - and every story after it - possible. ## FAQ ### How is this different from a eulogy template I found online? A template gives you blanks to fill in: 'She was a wonderful [relationship] who loved [hobby].' It has no idea who your person actually was. Glow's timeline is built from the photos and stories your family has already added, so the structure comes from their real life - the years that were full, the years that were quiet, the faces that keep appearing. You are not filling in a form; you are moving through a life in order and choosing what to say about it. ### Do I need to know how to write to use this? No. You start by scanning photos - the ones already on your phone are enough to begin. Glow places them into the timeline. You add a name or a sentence where you can. The shape of the remarks comes from the order of the life, not from your ability to write a polished draft. Most people find that once they can see the years laid out, they know exactly which stories belong in the room on Saturday. ### Will the eulogy sound like me, or like something a machine wrote? The timeline is the structure; your memories are everything else. Glow does not write your sentences. It shows you the life in order so you can find your own words for it. The story about the Tuesday phone calls, the way he always had a plan - those come from you. The timeline just makes sure you do not leave the best ones behind because you could not remember when they happened. ### What if the death was complicated - a suicide, an overdose, years of estrangement? You are not required to explain the cause of death from the podium, or to resolve in five minutes what years could not. A eulogy can be honest about who someone was without accounting for every hard thing that happened. Focus on what was true about them - a moment, a habit, the way they showed up in the years they could. If you are carrying something heavy right now, the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available any hour by call or text. ### How quickly can I build enough of the timeline to help me write the eulogy? Scanning a handful of photos and opening the timeline takes less than half an hour. You do not need the entire archive finished before Saturday - you need enough dated photos to see the shape of the years, and enough named faces to know which stories to tell. Start with whatever is already on your phone. You can fill in the rest after the service, when there is more time. --- Source: https://tryglow.ai/features/family-timeline-for-the-reluctant-eulogist