【推荐1】For the last few years, Elijah Cossio, a Houston teen, has been assisting his mother Tina Hernandez with her hospital bills by holding a daily bake sale after school. The 14-year-old_______wakes up at 5 a.m. and bakes desserts each day before school. Once the classes have ended, he _______ his homemade goods to classmates, parents and community members.

Hernandez, a mother of three who nearly _______ an infection (感染) in 2017, was proud of her son. “It feels   _______ because I brought him up that way.” she said.

However, Elijah’s baking hobby wasn’t something he ever _______ to be doing in order to support his mother and siblings (兄弟姐妹). “My mom has always taught me to work for what I want because nothing is_______ to me for free.”

The teen’s world was _______upside down when his mother became ill. After she_______, Hernandez said she had to “relearn everything”, which included _______ tasks, like using the restroom. Elijah knew he had to help support her because of her ________.

At that point, Elijah was already selling baked goods on the weekends to earn some ________cash. As his skills have already been________, he decided to increase his ________by selling homemade desserts every day after school.

“There’s more to ________than just sitting and playing games,” he explained. “I was________to go and get what I want, so I went and got it.”

【推荐2】Castillo wrote a letter to her father for his 50th birthday. Her father, who suffers from Down’s syndrome (唐氏综合征), had at one point been a(n) _________ in her life. But in her letter, she wanted the world to know how much she _________ and loves her father.

Castillo said it took years before she had the courage to _________ the truth about her situation and her father. She got bullied at school because the other kids saw her father as “_________”. She didn’t understand at the time why the kids were bullying her. _________, she thought of herself as a “coward daughter”.

“You _________ love, understanding, patience and acceptance as any individual with Down’s syndrome should,” she wrote.

Besides having Down’s syndrome, her father has a wide _________ of health complication (并发症). Therefore, her father has been in and out of the hospital getting all sorts of _________. Castillo wrote that her father is the “most _________ person” because of what he went through, yet he rarely complained. But there were times when he couldn’t __________ the pain and broke down in tears, which hurt her greatly and made her cry. But her dad kept persisting (坚持), which gave her __________.

“Dad, no words can sum up how __________ I am for being a(n) __________ daughter. If there is one thing I regret, it is __________ you from my life because I was afraid of getting bullied. But I love you more than you could ever __________ and I am always inspired by you,” she wrote.

【推荐3】My younger brother has a strange relationship with birthdays. One year, he sent me an unexpected birthday card, which turned out to be a double _________ as it arrived four months after my birthday.

“You should just _________ when you feel like it, and not be restricted (限制) to a specific day,” he said.

“So basically, that means it doesn’t _________ when my birthday is. You just get to celebrate the day I was _________ any time you like, even though I _________ to celebrate it on the actual date?” I asked.

“You’ve always been a little over the top about _________,” he said.

“Fine. But I always remember yours,” I said. I would _________ forget the day he was born.

The first year my daughter was away at college, he missed her birthday. By then, we both knew her _________ had many great attributes (特征) except remembering birthdays.

Her birthday is in September. In January of the following year, she _________ a letter. It was from her uncle. No card. Just some __________ and a note that said, “Buy whatever you want.”

She later told me the special gift from her uncle __________ made her happy. The idea of surprising her when she was least __________ it was amazing.

And it continued. Once he __________ us with several stylish hats and it was no one’s birthday. He had described our __________ to the saleswoman and she had __________ what she thought each of us might like. And she was right; we all liked our gifts.

So this year I was a bit __________ when he called me the day after my birthday. Was his __________ attitude towards birthdays disappearing? Had he been dragged (拖) down by societal expectations to behave __________?

“I’m __________ I missed your birthday yesterday,” he said.

“You’re __________ to do that. It’s what makes you my brother,” I replied.

【推荐1】A woman is volunteering in ashelter. It all started because she missed her own _________ .

Sandy was at a loss when her beloved Angus died last year — terribly lonely, yet not quite______for a new dog in her life. ________, she decided to volunteer at the local animal shelter and spend some quality time with furry friends who, like her, were ________ their old buddies (伙伴).

Remembering that her dog had loved being read to, she brought along a ________   there.

It's now been 18 months sinceSandy first began ________ her chair beside the dog house. Shelter workers say it really calms down the dogs, but Sandy says it does more ________ to her than it does to the dogs.

Sandy was ________ that photos of her reading to dogs were spreading on the Internet until the media started calling. Kathleen, a fellow shelter volunteer was so touched by the sight of her     ____ to an old dog that she took a photo and posted it on the Internet. She was so ______ with the dogs — I watched her read to several — and they just loved being ________ by her, "Kathleen said.

Inspired by Sandy's style of _________, the shelter has announced that a reading marathon is being ________ for next September. The plan is to get kids in the neighborhood ______ in reading to the animals, with the added benefit of reading practice for the two-leggers, along with plenty of friendly _______ for the four-leggers.

【推荐2】The Art of Healing

The sea fires our imagination and rekindles our spirit.

Wyland

It was Christmas Day 1984, and I began painting my first Whaling Wall in Hawaii. The giant ________ wall, three hundred feet long and twenty stories high,________ Kaiser Hospital. Patients, many sick and ________, looked out of their windows and saw a ________ pale brown wall, the architects’ answer to saving costs. But I saw the wall as a perfect canvas(画布)to ________ life-size whales and other colorful marine life.

As I began painting that first day, I ________ an old man with an IV(静脉注射器)________ to his arm sitting in a wheelchair, watching my every ________

Day after day this man would ________ on the balcony of his hospital room and spend nearly every moment ________ me paint my largest marine mural. I would wave to him each day, and he would wave back with all the ________ left in his fragile body. Four months later at the dedication ________ of the mural, I cut the ribbon with city ________ and thousands of supporters and looked across the parking lot where, among the many ________ rooms, I caught a(an)________ of the old man. He tipped his hand to me for what I knew would be the last time. I tried to ________ my emotion as I waved back. I found out later from his family that he had an ________ cancer and should have died ________ before, but had wanted to live to see the mural ________

The man died shortly after the dedication ceremony; his memory and ________ will live with me and within that mural forever.

【推荐3】As an ordinary mother, I am proud of my three children, David, Phil and Angel. I gave birth to my last little Angel in the middle of pandemic.

Due to the pandemic, society was cornered into ___mode. Schools were closed, food supplies and deliveries were ___and children were stuck at home. Luckily, I had some____time to do what I enjoyed. Since it was winter, I purchased tons of yam (毛线) to make scarves for my children as Christmas gifts. In such ___times, however, my children spent every day happily. Meanwhile, they had a new friend named Jane, the only daughter from a family which moved in down the street. It seemed that her family was a financially ____one, for she always wore old clothes. _____, in such cold days, she had no more clothes to wear and_____with cold.

Every time David came in, he always cried,“Mum, it is freezing cold outside!” Then he __ to see whether I finished the scarf. I could tell how______he was to wear it sooner! I had to speed up, but David____ me saying he could wait a few days. At last, my great art project was accomplished on the morning ahead of Christmas. Both David and Phil were in high spirits, and they rushed out___to play with Jane. David was a caring and considerate boy,and he noticed Jane would hardly bear the freezing weather with worn-out clothes.“Can I give this scarf to Jane as a gift?” David_____in a low voice. Smilingly, I nodded. David was wild with joy and gave his scarf to Jane without hesitation. Seeing Jane play happily outside, with the scarf sheltering her to____the bone-chilling wind, I felt relieved and I felt ___of David.

For Jane- -a scarf to keep warm, and for David- -a taste of_____of giving.