The printer's model eulogy was replete with lofty sentiment. (eulogy: tribute, encomium, panegyric; replete: full, abundant, well-stocked; lofty: elevated, noble, high-minded; sentiment: feeling, view, opinion) It could evoke a dutiful teacher, a gallant seaman or a solitary farmer, provided nobody supplied a detail. (evoke: arouse, elicit, awaken; gallant: brave, valiant, courageous; solitary: alone, lone, unaccompanied) Ada read it while the family sat bereft at the kitchen table. (bereft: deprived, devoid, lacking) One lachrymose phrase would make her father laugh, she thought, and that thought began to loosen her grief. (lachrymose: tearful, weepy, mournful)
She crossed out the lugubrious introduction and the long lament over the brevity of life. (lugubrious: mournful, doleful, dismal; lament: lamentation, elegy, expression of grief) The poignancy of his last visit lay in the mundane fact that he had brought her a turnip and forgotten his coat. (poignancy: pathos, emotional force, moving quality; mundane: ordinary, everyday, prosaic) If she could distill that afternoon into six lines, she could read them aloud. (distill: extract, condense, refine)
At the funeral her uncle's eyes began to run. He attributed the lacrimation to the lilies. (lacrimation: tearing, tear production, weeping) Then Ada read the line about the turnip. Her uncle admitted the flowers had nothing to do with it and fetched the coat from his car. Wearing it home was more cathartic than anything she had managed to say. (cathartic: cleansing, releasing, purging)