It started with a dogwood (山茱萸) tree.
I was in Ohio when my mother died on a cold day in February, and everything was _________. A few weeks into my grief (悲痛), my uncle suggested planting a tree in _________ of her. He had visited my parents many years ago during a California spring. They drove down a neighborhood street lined with blooming dogwood trees and ever since, the _________ of a dogwood reminded him of my mom.
We planted the dogwood in May. Its gray trunk (树干) was as thin as my mother’s arms. It lay in the _________ much like her ashes would settle on the rocky soil of the Rocky Mountains five years later.
Planting a living thing to honor her hard life that ended too soon soothed (抚慰) my heart. This tree would be a symbol of her, something I could _________ despite all I’d lost.
My mother could make anything _________. She had not just green thumbs but green hands and a nature that could raise anything but herself.
As a young adult, I was never good at cultivating—opportunities, relationships, and flowers. Because of distance and poor health, my relationship with my mom never got the chance to blossom as I’d hoped.
But my mom’s dogwood grew. Its _________ pushed into the hard soil; its white blossoms exploded like stars every June. This tree gave me hope that life goes on in spite of the past.
Soon I began buying other plants. Without explanation, these plants suddenly thrived under my care. And I grew, too, learning how to tend to them. So many lessons that nature already knew, that my mother must have known but didn’t have time to _________, I applied to my own life.
A part of me believes this is my mother’s gift she gave to me after she passed away—the ability to encourage and celebrate _________ where there was none, to make flowers appear out of the dirt. It is her reminder to find the good in whatever I’m __________, and a promise that wherever she is, it is beautiful.
Though she has been gone for more than 14 years, I can still find her in my garden.
1. A.cold | B.colorless | C.false | D.amazing |
2. A.need | B.favor | C.memory | D.celebration |
3. A.existence | B.sight | C.height | D.wonder |
4. A.air | B.heaven | C.water | D.ground |
5. A.sign up for | B.adapt to | C.hold on to | D.catch up with |
6. A.grow | B.rise | C.melt | D.appear |
7. A.branches | B.seeds | C.roots | D.leaves |
8. A.share | B.draw | C.learn | D.judge |
9. A.tradition | B.holidays | C.victory | D.life |
10. A.taken | B.handed | C.reminded | D.convinced |