【推荐2】Sports are important in our family. Both of our sons were high-school athletes. So, I shouldn’t have been _________ when Lauren announced she was going out for the girls’ basketball team. But I was, because she has Down syndrome(唐氏综合症). My wife and I never told Lauren that she was _________. We treated her like our other children. We didn’t want her to feel disabled.

“I’m gonna play basketball, Daddy.” Lauren ran to meet me when I came in from work. She flew into my arms and lingered long in my embrace. “That’s _________, honey,” I patted her shoulder and walked into the kitchen. My wife spoke slowly, her tone steady. “What Lauren’s trying to say is that she’s joining the girls’ high-school basketball team.” Her words _________ in. Everything that could happen flashed through my mind. But what could we do?

Mid-November, the season’s first basketball game arrived. It got off to a good start, but soon Verden, Lauren’s team, was behind. Lauren _________ followed the movement on the court and reacted to every shot. Even though she wasn’t playing, she looked as if she were having the time of her life.

Just less than two minutes were left, and Verden was down by seventeen points when Lauren was called in for the game! She _________ the others fairly well. From her agile movement and eager expression, I knew she was desperate to score for her team. Then they passed Lauren the ball. She _________ it. She shot. She scored! A few minutes later, Lauren joined us in the stands. “Did you see? I scored! I made a _________!”

For sixteen years, I’d tried hard to _________ Lauren from feeling like she was different. But watching Lauren in the game, I saw that she really was different—not physically or emotionally, but __________.

【推荐3】I am the “Laundry Goddess”. Well, that’s what my kids call me anyway because I have the talent for finding the right _________ for any stain. From spaghetti sauce and grass marks to ballpoint ink stains, whatever my _________ throw to me, I seem to be able to find a way to make it look brand new again. It’s a skill I got from my mother. My mom wouldn’t admit it, but I think she _________ doing the laundry.

The laundry room was Mom’s territory. It was _________, with only the sounds of the washing machine or the hum of the dryer to interrupt her. She would _________ down early in the morning, often still in her housecoat, to put in the first _________ of the day. We would find her there, leaning against the machine, peacefully having a coffee, and reading the newspaper in her territory absorbedly.

I don’t remember Mom teaching me the ways of the laundry room. I learned to _________ towels and small items as a youngster. I spent many hours ironing clean cotton handkerchiefs and pillowcases. But the _________ wasn’t part of my training. So, when I left home and _________ to another city, __________ the stain required an expensive long-distance phone call home.

My washer and dryer seem to have more __________ than a jet plane, certainly many more than the machines with basic functions used by my mom. I have made the __________ from laundry powder to liquid, and I have my own favorite stain __________. But every time I step into the laundry room and think about how to deal with a particularly difficult stain, I __________ the Laundry Goddesses who came before me for her wisdom and perseverance. And each clean item of clothing is a(n) __________ force in a messy world.

【推荐1】A little boy invited his mother to attend his school’s first teacher-parent meeting. To the little boy’s   __ , she said she would go. This _____be the first time that his classmates and teacher______his mother and he felt _____of her appearance. Although she was a beautiful woman, there was a severe scar（疤痕）that ______ nearly the entire right side of her face. The boy never wanted to _____why or how she got the scar.

At the meeting, the people were_____ by the kindness and natural beauty of his mother ____the scar, but the little boy was still embarrassed（尴尬）and _____ himself from everyone. He, however,_____ a conversation between his mother and his teacher.

The teacher asked ______,“How did you get the scar on your face?”

The mother replied,“______ my son was a baby, he was in a room that caught fire. Everyone was______   afraid to go in because the fire was______ ，so I went in. As I was running toward his bed, I saw a piece of wood coming down and I placed myself over him trying to protect him. I was knocked _____ but fortunately, a fireman came in and saved both of us.” She ______ the burned side of her face. “This scar will be _____ ,but to this day, I have never_______what I did.”

At this point, the little boy came out running toward his mother with tears in his eyes. He held her in his arms and felt a great______ of the sacrifice（牺牲）that his mother had made for him. He held her hand _______for the rest of the day.

【推荐2】My mother used to be controlling and our relationship was difficult. As she got older, she _______ to soften. Just five years ago, I got a call at 5:30 a.m. from Hawaii saying my mother was in the _______ room with a high fever and fast heart rate. When I was _______ planes in San Francisco, I got a call from my mother’s _______, who was also my friend. She said, “_______ you get here, don’t go to the hotel first. Come _______ to the hospital. I think we’re looking at hours now.” I said, “Chery, I have a 6­hour _______ahead of me. Please _______ in her ear that I’m coming, and she’ll _______.” Chery did. My mother waited. I ________ Hawaii, and held her hand for the next 8 days.

During that time our relationship was ________. She could no longer ________anything. We sat, talked, and she ________ sang to me. Because everyone thought she was ________， I said all the things I thought I might never have the ________ to say again. I told her I loved her, and how much I ________ all she’d done for me.

After that, she ________ slowly and stuck around for her 90th birthday. That was 5 years ago. She died 6 days after her 95th birthday. During the last 5 years I made about 25 ________ to see her. In the last few hours of her ________, her children and grandchildren told her they loved her, and Mom was sweet and bathed in ________ as she passed.

【推荐3】When I was younger, I was accustomed to obeying orders. Go to school. Go to play basketball. _________ the parents. One of the most _________ commands was: Be quiet.

So, I learned to stay quiet—about problems, desires and feelings. I developed a rich _________ world and my thoughts were to be _________ mostly to myself.

On the _________ side, that made me more _________. But it also caused that I didn’t experience what I wanted, as the wants and the communication both got stopped by a blanket of _________.

It was a long time before I knew it was okay to _________ about needs, desires, and feelings. As I got older, I found people _________ me to open up and share more. That was difficult to do though. I wasn’t ____________ it. When people wanted to know more about me, ____________ felt like they were shining a burning spotlight into my ____________. But this left me ____________ inside my own thought. I couldn’t talk about what I felt, needed, and wanted, no one could help me make ____________. Even if people offered ____________, it was misguided because they didn’t really know what I wanted. They had to ____________, but their guesses were wrong.

However, in order to seek for personal ____________, I read lots of books and listened to many audio programs. I liked it when other people ____________ their stories, goals, ambitions, mistakes, and feelings. Every now and then, I’d come across something that struck me as really ____________ and authentic. And I gradually found I really need to ____________ my quiet and safe area now.

【推荐1】I visited my mom in New York City—her job had taken her there for a year. Because of my birthday she had me fly there to spend a long weekend with her. No _________ with my mom would be complete without her _________ me to clothes shops. So it was no great _________ to find myself in a department store outside a _________ room.

At that time, a woman came out with a red sleeveless evening gown. She was a completely _________ woman, neither fat nor thin, who looked slightly _________ at the end of a long day.

As most women _________ to do, despite the fact that we were _________, I gave my opinion on the dress as she asked. The dress fitted her well and _________ her a nice shape, but she was worrying it showed too much of her upper arms. I __________ her that it was a comfortable formal dress __________ she looked wonderful on it. Just then her daughter and husband came. When they saw her, their eyes __________ with joy and her young daughter said she looked like a   __________, completely overjoyed by how beautiful her mother was. However, she still wasn’t quite __________ it suited her. I asked her to look at her family __________ and asked if she could see how beautiful they thought she was. When she finally saw her daughter so excited and that her husband was __________ her, tears came to her eyes.

She gave me a __________ hug and whispered “Thank you” a few times before releasing me to go to hug her family and graciously __________ their compliments. She finally paid for the dress and they happily walked __________. I stood there lost in thought — One's genuine and good __________ can really make a difference.

【推荐2】Milo is a rescue dog, adopted by 20-year-old Makayla Swift. One morning in November 2021, Swift opened her front door and Milo _________ running. “I couldn’t catch him,” she said.

Milo ran to a house across the street. He seemed _________ with this house, so he ran to the one next door, Swift on his _________. When it started scratching on the front door, Swift was _________. Not everyone wants a _________ dog on their property. But as she tried to _________ Milo away, she could hear a sound coming through an open upstairs window. It was a voice crying “Help!”.

Hours earlier, Sherry Starr, 85, had just _________ around 4 am, for she had heard the front door bell ring. She walked to an upstairs bathroom, opened the window and looked outside. But no one there. Starr turned to exit. “All of a sudden, standing there between the toilet and the bathtub, I _________,” she said, “I went down hard on the floor. I could not move at all,” said Starr, who was _________ between the toilet and the bathtub. Starr was feeling __________ all over, but more than anything, she was scared. “I’m thinking: I’m just going to die here.”

Her best __________, she decided, was to listen for the telltale squeak of her mail box lid when the letter carrier stopped by and scream at the top of her lungs. For the next few hour, Starr __________ crying: “Help! Help! Help!”

“Her voice was very __________,” said Swift. “You had to be right on the spot to hear Mrs. Starr cried for __________ unless you were Milo, who had __________ heard Starr the instant I had opened my front door.” Swift called 911 and soon medical staff helped her out.