【推荐1】For much of our life, my mother and I hated each other. I spent most of my childhood ______ with her – or trying to avoid her, as well as her bitterness, unhappiness and endless smoking. I learned how to defend myself with ______ designed to hurt her. In turn, she vowed(发誓) I would have a ______ who would feel the way about me that I felt about her.

Many years later when my husband and I decided to have a child, I was ______ to have a girl. I couldn’t ______ the thought of a daughter who might not love me – or who would want to ______ me. As soon as I became pregnant, I was convinced I was having a boy. In the delivery room, on my doctor putting my baby into my arms, I couldn’t wait to tell my mother I had a ______, while “he” was a girl. At that moment, I couldn’t imagine wanting anyone but her.

____I couldn’t forget my mother’s teasing(耻笑的) vow, even after she died, I felt a little relived about it.______ my daughter got older, whenever we argued, I worried we were ______ the same awful path that my mother and I had gone down.

Last summer, my daughter ______ 18, the same age when my mother threw me out of her apartment for ______. However, I was with her, planning for her first year at college. When my husband and I dropped her off at her school in New York, I finally ______ to her my biggest fear that we would end up like me and my mother. “That will never happen.” she _______ me, kissing me goodbye. Six weeks later, my husband and I returned to the campus. I ______ myself arguing with my daughter about her messy room, not using the library and her mistake of choosing the room near the bathroom. I couldn’t stop myself. And then ______ came: “You’re just like your mother,” my daughter screamed. “I hate you.” And then she ______.

I finally heard the words I had always dreaded. But maybe that was because I ______ them. I had always worried the bond I shared with my daughter would ______. Later that evening, we picked my daughter up to a restaurant. We ate ______. But when we separated, I hugged her. The next morning, she called telling she loved me. There wasn’t anything to be afraid of anymore. There was just a relationship we should work on with each other.

A Father's Love

Daddy just didn’t know how to show love. It was Mom who_______ the family together. He just went to work every day and came home; she’d have a list of things we’d done wrong and he’d scold us about them.

Once when I stole a candy bar, he_______ me take it back and tell the man I stole it and that I’d pay for it. But it was Mom who _______ I was just a kid.

I broke my leg once on the playground and it was Mom who held me in her arms all the way to the _______ Dad pulled the car _______ up to the door of the emergency room and when they asked him to move it saying the space was _________ for emergency vehicles. He shouted, “What do you think this is? A tour bus?”

At my birthday parties, Dad always seemed sort of _______. He just _______ himself in blowing up balloons, setting up tables, and running errands. It was Mom who carried the cake with the candles on it for me to blow out.

When I look through picture albums, people always ask, “What does your Dad look like?” “Who knows? He was always running around with the camera taking everyone else’s picture. I _______ have a thousand pictures of Mom and me smiling together.”

I remember when Mom told him to teach me how to ride a bicycle. I told him not to __________, but he said it was time________. I fell and Mom ran to pick me up, but he ________ her off. I was so ________ that I shouted at him, got right back on the bike and rode it myself. He didn’t even feel embarrassed and just ________

When I went to college, Mom did all the writing. He just sent checks and a little note about how ________ his lawn looked________ I wasn’t playing football on it.

Whenever I ________ home, he acted like he wanted to talk, ________ he always said, “I’ll get your mother.” When I got married, it was Mom who cried. He just blew his nose ________ and left the room. All my life he said, “Where are you going? What time are you coming home? No, you cannot go.”

Daddy just didn’t know how to show love, unless…

Is it possible he showed it and didn’t ________ it?

【推荐3】When studying at the University of Pittsburgh, I went home to Virginia to see my family one weekend. “Look, I got a best sportsman’s jacket!” I said. Dad ____took his eyes off the TV. I had wanted Dad to ____me all my life, but nothing ever seemed ____enough. I shook off my ____ and went back to Pitt. A month later, Mom called and said that Dad’s diabetes (糖尿病) had gotten worse. “I’m coming homo,” I said. “You’re going to need help.” I ____ a college near home. Every Sunday, I went home and helped Dad. To my sadness, he ____everything I did. “It’s not you,” Mom explained to me. “What ____him makes him feel bad about himself. His anger was ____his frustration(挫败).” I was so surprised to hear that. Now I saw his pain went beyond the ____ pain, and that made me try harder to ____him.

One day we were watching a football game. “I’ll bet you $2 million that Dallas wins,” I said. Dad looked at me. “You don’t have $2 million,” he ____. After that, every time we watched the game, we made ____bets. Dad laughed more easily and he was more willing to accept my help. Our relationship was ____That spring, a week before the National Football League draft (选拔), we had a party at our house. After everyone had gone, Dad and I were sitting in the living room. He caught my eye. “It doesn’t ____if you make it or not,” he said. “I’m proud of you.” Maybe our relationship would never be perfect, but I would never ____that he wanted the best for me.

【推荐2】As I write, a gentle, much needed rain is falling this morning. It has been a dry_____ here in Vermont, __________dry that the Spring Peepers(雨蛙)were late in coming that many thought these frogs would fail to bless us with their song. But they came, and I can’t_______them for being late. They are a_______of spring, and of rebirth.

It is late June and the mountain snow has______the higher slopes of the mountains. My family______our garden during the last weekend of May, and frost came twice since then,   ____not a killing frost. But others were not so lucky: they lost most of young plants this year. Twice this spring has been______enough in the day so that my family went swimming, but there was______on the ground the next morning.

Planting a garden in Vermont amounts to an act of______. Will our sweat______, or will these efforts be in vain? My family was recently faced with a______decision: shall we leave this place and its people, or shall we stay and make a______? Well, we have decided this is   ____we will make our stand._______the garden, this year we have planted ourselves. Will my family be______with what is needed to grow and flourish(兴旺)? We have no way of knowing this but we do have faith.

What is planted must be revisited often and the garden must be taken care of with love, which______to our lives as well. Hopes and dreams must be revisited often for fear that we lose sight of the things that ______. Commitments must be______as carefully as any garden plot. But as with gardening, there are no______. But there is faith, and today is a beautiful day.

【推荐3】Emma, my 11-year-old, has a serious letter-writing habit. She _______ actively with her favorite people. A letter from Emma is likely to include Mime art, a joke or two, and enough questions to guarantee a_______.

A few days ago, she wrote to our mail carrier Daren and expressed how_______ she was to him for taking her letters and_______ them Emma wrote, " You are very important to me because you make it possible for me to stay in touch with my friends since I don't have a phone. I make people happy with my _______ , but you do too."

The next day, Daren replied, expressing how _______ he was. Interestingly, letters _______ to Emma kept arriving. Daren had _______ Emma's note as a "Token （表示）of Thanks' in the internal US — post. Many postal folks wrote to thank her.

These letters are filled with family, hobbies, and a sense of kindness, and something more. People felt _______.“I work alone in a small rural post office…”“Few people think about how ________we work …”“I can't tell you how much it ________ to read your letter...”

We've all been in a moment of________isolation that is amplifying （放大）a real epidemic of loneliness, anxiety, and depression. Emma's ________to me was simple： It's the small things that________ most. Send a letter. Make a call. You can start the same goodness with the people that you ________ , respect, and love. Just tell them that you miss them, love them, or just see them.