【推荐1】My mom only had one eye. I hated her. She was an embarrassment for me. Once on our school sports day, my mom came. I was so upset. I wished she would just disappear from this world. So I said the worst words to her. However, my mom did not respond.

That night I woke up and found her crying. I took a look at her. I still hated my mom who was crying with her one eye. I told myself that I would grow up, become successful and leave her for the rest of my life, and I realized my dream.

One day, a letter about a school reunion (同学聚会) came to my house and I went back for it. After the reunion, I went where we used to live, just out of curiosity. There I found my mom fallen on the ground, still. But I did not have a single tear in my eyes. Then I found a piece of paper in her hand. It was a letter to me.

My son, I miss you so much. I was too glad when I heard you were coming for the reunion. But I decided not to go to the school for you. I’m so sorry that I have only one eye. You see, when you were very little, you got into an accident and lost your eye. So I gave mine to you. I was so proud of my son to see a whole new world for me with that eye. I love you!

My world fell. I cried for Mother. I didn’t have any chance to make up for my worst words.

【推荐2】When my daughter Sara was in the fifth grade，she came to me with a problem.“Marcy hates me！” she cried.“Because Kathy is my friend，too. She wants me to be her friend and nobody else’s. You talk to Marcy.You tell her that I want to be her friend，but I can have other friends，too！”

Oh！I looked at her for a few moments，wondering how I got into this mess，when suddenly an idea came to me.

Picking up two baskets from the living room，I explained，“When everyone is born，he or she has a little basket. This little one here is yours. The big one is mine. As you grow，so does the basket. You can see your little basket is inside mine because when you were born，there were too many things you couldn’t do for yourself. I did everything you couldn’t do on your own.”She nodded.

“Well，as you grew older and began to do some things on your own，I began placing a few more things in your basket. When you learned to tie your shoes，that went in your basket.”

She said softly，“I can tie my own shoes.”

“Right. As you grow older，there will be more and more things you must do on your own.” As I spoke，I gradually took her basket out of mine and handed it to her.“You will finally carry your own basket with things only you can do.”

She looked up at me and said，“I understand. There are some things that I have to do for myself because they are in my basket.”

【推荐3】Some of my earliest memories of Mother come from the time we lived in Prairie Village. I was about 3 years old. Mother would take me on nature hikes along the small river’s banks.

In the bushes we found insects, cocoons (茧) and butterflies. She made a butterfly net for me. While running after a butterfly in our back yard, I put the net down. Mother and I built snowmen, much taller than I, and we laughed aloud after a snowball fight. In the season of rain and flowers, singing birds and sunny mornings, the cocoon broke open, and a brilliant white butterfly came out.

One of our favorite books was “The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher.” I would sit at Mother's side as she read the story. I consider the years spent with Mother “On the River” a foundation to a lifelong interest in science, inspiring me, in part, to choose a career in medicine. I recall sitting with Mom on the front of the house in Baldwin late one June evening. Dad’s tail-lights were disappearing quickly as he drove off to see his Dad, who was dying in Garnett.

Mom said, “Oh, kids, we’re only here for such a short time....” Her words were also kind of scary to me at the time, because what I heard her say was that we are all destined (注定) to die, and she had told me once before that she was afraid to die. I guessed her message was more than “Our life on earth is short and we are all destined to die” She meant that “Make the most of life while you can, here on earth. Reach for the stars!” Mother also said “Oh, kids! We’ll have the stars!” She had 5 of the stars she’d brought onto this earth. In 1963, 6th star was added, named Kip.

All of us did well in our life. 1971 found me attending Baker University, and I found a star and married her in the middle of medical school. I have added four more stars: Dean, Christine, Dan, and Dave. Dean found a star and married her. He and Shakeena now have 3 stars: Demetrius, Olivia, and Maxwell. Mom loved babies, children, and youth so much... We have the stars!

【推荐3】

At age 12, Keegan Sobilo of New Baltimore carefully tucks his legs and arms into a fire suit, pulls on a helmet and climbs into a race car that exceeds 80 mph. He has been doing this since age 8.

“ At first, I was scared to death. I was like, 'Let's do bowling or swimming. ' It's still very scary.But he knows what he's doing. Your heart goes out on that track every time he goes out there," said his mother Hillary Sobilo.

＂The sixth-grader always wears pajamas to the track every night and takes them off when he puts his race clothes on. He's been doing that for the last four years. That's his trademark,” said Tim Phillips, his crew chief. The first time he wore his train pajamas to the track, Keegan went from last place to ninth place. He decided they brought luck. Since then, he has won a series of championships.

Passion for cars runs in the family. Keegan's father is a design mechanic at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. He knows what it means to have seats and roll cages built to fit his son's body."What I see in Keegan is passion, like how I feel about car restoration. But for him, everything has to align itself. I tell my son you have to be the perfect package. Winning races every weekend is not the only key. More importantly, you have to have the right name, you have to look the correct way, speak the correct way, and act the correct way. Then the rest of it is really luck, like the stock market. If you don't put yourself out there,you'll never hit it big."

While Keegan's classmates play basketball and volleyball,Keegan is at the Birch Run track-practicing, qualifying and racing until 10 p.m. or 2 a.m. While many children spend time playing video games, Keegan runs race simulation training with his joystick after school.

＂The kid is cool.It was like having a grandson. We showed respect to each other. And he takes it very seriously," said competitor Mike Todd, 69 , of Galesburg, Michigan." He's an older soul in a young man's body. I'd like to see him make it big. He's got the willpower."

【推荐2】It was the first time I had noticed him properly. Before this, Jack had just been a friendly young man provided by the hotel to accompany me on trips to the wildlife park nearby. But then he caught my attention by asking me to shut up.

“It’s just a garden spider. Don’t cry!” he said, looking at the creature with more love than I could gather for most humans. I had indeed cried-I was in the front seat of a jeep and the spider was on my leg.

“I don’t care what it is. Make it go away!” I said. I wanted him to pick the thing up and throw it out of the jeep right at that moment. He did something quite else.

He pushed his leg towards mine and held out the cloth of his trousers to gently let the spider go onto his own leg. He then drove on, as if nothing had happened. The spider climbed a little bit and then just stopped on his knee. I sat there staring at the spider for any sudden movement.

I was frightened that the man was completely at ease with a spider dangerously quiet on his knee. About 15 minutes later, he pushed his knee forward to the dashboard and the spider immediately climbed off his knee and on to the jeep. “The poor thing had been trying to get off me,” he said. “I only noticed now that it was trying to reach the dashboard, so I helped it along.”

I wondered then about this man, who thought about the spider with such kindness... Where and when did I lose my empathy towards the unfamiliar? Now, when faced with a row of ants on the staircase, my first reaction is no longer to attack them. The ants were already wise, but thanks to Jack, I learnt to live with the not so beautiful bits of nature.