Books

“Change the behavior. Change the mindset. Consider the impact.” That is the clarion call at the heart of the new book, Take Your Two Minutes…Then Sit Down™, written by Terry Williams Spicer and set to release Monday, August 31, 2026. In it she challenges us to examine how extended time at the microphone can unintentionally add to the burden of grieving families.

 

“We’ve all watched it happen,” said Spicer. “An invited speaker is tasked with an assignment to deliver meaningful words with brevity and somewhere within a long narrative the focus shifts. It is no longer about the person being remembered or the family. It becomes about the one still standing, still talking.” Spicer does not exempt herself from the conversation. Her own personal experience became the catalyst for the book after she spoke too long at the Homegoing Service of her beloved Godmother Lela.

 

Spicer calls this phenomenon Speaker Grief™ that is the moment when a speaker’s personal expression of loss begins to overshadow the grief of the family. It is not often born of bad intentions but it has become common behavior, too easily repeated from service to service until it begins to feel like tradition. But intention does not erase impact. Every additional minute at the microphone can become an additional burden for a family already carrying the weight of loss.

 

At the center of the book is a concept Spicer calls The Empty Chair™, the symbolic place that honors the legacy of loss and represents the absence the family must learn to navigate after the service has ended. When attention shifts from The Empty Chair™ to the person still standing at the microphone, the sacred focus of the moment shifts with it. The book’s message is therefore grounded in one guiding principle that The Family Is The Assignment™. Take Your Two Minutes…Then Sit Down™ is not only a book about funeral etiquette. It is a clarion call for cultural change and an invitation to change our behavior, reconsider our mindset and become more conscious of our impact on grieving families.

 

“Love doesn’t need a microphone, and love is not measured by how long we stand at one,” said Spicer. Our words should help lift honor and inspiration.” The purpose of The Cultural Conversation™ is to move the conversation beyond the pages of the book and into practice in our families, churches, funeral homes, pulpits and communities. It is a call for thoughtful consideration that leads to changed behavior, changed mindsets and acts of leadership that power impact. The Cultural Conversation™ begins now. The Family Is The Assignment™.