【推荐2】A few days before Christmas 2012, I found myself in Walmart. It was the last _______I wanted to be, especially during the chaos of last-minute Christmas shopping. It had been a little more than a month since my husband was laid off.

The school my kids attended asked if we needed help for Christmas, and we _______. If not for them, our kids would not have had Christmas gifts.

My children were with me that day at Walmart. Our cupboards were bare, and I had only eighty dollars to _________   a family of six for a week. It’s not impossible to _______, but certainly not comfortable. It leaves little _______   for anything extra. Yet, it was Christmas, and my kids asked if they could buy a present for their dad. How could I say “no”? I found a gift box of their dad’s favorite cologne and hoped I could _______ it. Lucky for me, my husband doesn’t have expensive_______.

My husband worked very hard to_______ for us, and I stayed home. It wasn’t by _______ . Having two children on the autism spectrum makes it difficult for me to work. Doctors’ appointments, therapy schedules, and school meetings make it near impossible to __________   a regular work schedule. So, when he was laid off, things got very __________ quickly. He wasn’t without a job long, but the __________   of income for a couple of weeks certainly put a stress on our family.

As I chose my groceries, I kept a running total in my head. As my cart (手推车) filled, my __________   rose. The more I thought about it, the less ___________ it was that I would be able to buy a gift for my husband.

When I went to the checkout, I set aside the cologne gift box. My kids____________,       but I didn’t have much of a choice. My heart__________ when the grocery total was indeed too high for us to buy the gift, but an angel was waiting in the wings.

What happened left me speechless, and being the __________ type, speechless is rare for me. A man__________ us, put four twenty-dollar bills into my hand and happily exclaimed, “Merry Christmas!” He left so fast that I didn’t __________ have a chance to say, “Thank you.”

A wave of emotion came over me as I ___________the cologne gift set to the belt. We were thrilled, and my husband had a Christmas present. Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness.

【推荐3】We had our son Wesley checked out because of his indifference to communicate with people. To our ______, he was diagnosed with autism(自闭症).

Out of everything the doctor had said, the only word I could ______ was socialization — key for Wesley to develop ______ skills. The instant we got on the car, we ______ brainstormed ways to make his world more social. It suddenly ______ me that we were in need of a dog. Soon, we brought the dog Josie home. Wesley didn’t seem that ______ her, no matter how adorable she was. But then I began to ______ Wesley petting her when he thought no one was looking.

Four months after we’d gotten Josie, I ______ the two of them out for a long play. By the end, they were both ______. As soon as I put Wesley in his car seat, he fell asleep, with Josie ______ her head on his shoulder. That’s when I knew they had ______ bonded. One of our biggest ______ was that Wesley had no sense of danger and didn’t ______ what a moving car meant. He would dart out in the street. I was ______ he would get hit by a car. Luckily, Josie was able to ______ keep him on the sidewalk with us.

The best thing about having a ______ is that kids come to you. ______ the daily walk to the bus stop provides an opportunity for Wesley to socialize with other children. Kids surround him with ______ about Josie and we practice his answers at home so he is more comfortable talking ______. I finally learned how to make peace with autism while so ______ it.