It was Mother's Day Jack was driving his new Mercedes Benz and enjoying the beauty of nature. The colorful flower shop along the road attracted his attention. He stopped his car, got out and took a closer look at some of the flowers on display. He thought about his loving mother who lived two hundred miles far away. So he chose a nice bouquet(花束)of pink roses as a gift and asked the shopkeeper to deliver them to his mother at the same day.

Just before he got into his car, he noticed a small, cute girl standing at a corner next to the shop. She was counting the money in her hand. She seemed a little upset. He went up to her and asked, “Can I help you?” She replied in a sad voice, “I want to buy some red roses for my mother. I have only eight cents but the roses cost one hundred cents. ”He smiled and asked her to accompany him to the shop. He bought a bouquet of red roses for the little one. While leaving the shop, he offered her a ride. She was happy and said, “Yes. Please take me to my mother.”

She showed him the way, which finally led to a cemetery(公墓).

Jack took the pink roses and drove two hundred miles to meet his mother.

My sister Tina and I are very different. I'm a just simple-minded girl, at least in her eyes, while she is literally the symbol of perfection. When I was young I wanted to be like her. If she wore her hair in a new style one day, I would do the same with mine the following day. I always tried to follow her and her friends around and begged to be included, but her life didn't really have much space for a bothersome two-year-younger sister. Over time, my admiration for her had turned into indifference. Living in the same apartment as strangers, we barely spoke to each other.

I even felt relieved in secret when she informed me this year that she would be spending eight months studying abroad. I assumed I'd use her video player and wear the dresses she left behind. That was the only way l thought her leaving would affect me.

I sat in my room that first evening after she departed and tried to concentrate on my homework. However, I couldn't get rid of the feeling that something was wrong, or something was missing. I looked around the apartment and everything was the same. But it was so silent that I could hear my own breathing. I went to Tina's room. Both her video player and her talk on the phone with her friends were absent. When I sat down on her bed, I became sharply aware of how different my life was without her. Even though we didn't always talk, just having her there made me feel secure.

Sitting there, I looked back at the wasted years and regretted trying to live my own life and overlooking hers. I felt particularly bad because I had not even given her a hug before she boarded her plane, and that made my heart ache.

As the night went on, I decided to do something to make it up.

For a long time there was nothing but silence on the other end of the line.

A mother is a person who, seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie.

—Tenneva Jordan

I knew I was not supposed to be quite so excited. I was too old for that. At age eleven, the oldest and my mom's "grown up" girl, I had to keep my cool. I was in middle school after all. But every chance I got, when I was alone, I checked each present under the tree. I read every tag and felt every package, guessing at the contents within. I had examined each gift so often that I could tell which present went to which person without even looking at the tags.

It had been a tough year for my family. Whenever my mom looked over at the tree and scattered（撒）presents, she would sigh and warn us, "There won't be as much for Christmas this year. Try not to be disappointed." Christmas had traditionally been a time for my parents to spoil us. In years past, the presents would pile up and spill out from under the tree, taking over the living room. I had heard the phrase "giving is better than receiving," but thought that whoever had said that must have been out of their mind. Getting presents was the whole point! It was the reason I couldn't get to sleep on Christmas Eve.

On Christmas morning, we eagerly waited in the hallway until Dad told us everything was ready. We rushed into the living room and let the wrapping paper fly. We made weak attempts to wait and watch while other family members opened their presents, but as the time passed we lost our self-control.

"Here's another one for you,” said Mom as she handed me a package. I looked at it, confused. Having spent so much time examining the presents before Christmas, I recognized this one. But it had not been mine. It was my mom's. A new label had been put on it, with my name written in my mother's handwriting.

"Mom, I can't...”

I was stopped by my mother's eager, joyful look.

I have always remembered that Christmas fondly.