【推荐1】On a Friday evening in December, two weeks before Christmas, I lost my job. I wasn’t just a single parent. I was the _________ parent. I could turn to no one. I felt as if the world was closing in on me.

On a weekend afternoon, I _________ out the window. It had been snowing all morning. I noticed a small woman _________ to open her car door against the wind. It _________ to be my old professor, Sister Esther. I hadn’t seen her since we’d met for lunch three months ago.

I _________ out. “What are you doing out in this _________?” I asked as we hugged.

“Well, I tried to call last week but couldn’t get through. Then I called your _________ and they said you weren’t working there anymore, so I thought I would come by,” she said. “I have _________ for you and Kristil.”

I made her a cup of tea, and we talked. Just being _________ gave me hope that things would be all right.

As she got up to leave, she handed me a Christmas __________. “This is for you,” she said as she kissed me on the cheek. I walked her to her car and waved as she __________ away.

When I opened her card, I got in __________. Hundred dollar bills fell onto the table. Tears of __________ welled in my eyes as I counted. $1000!

On Christmas morning, Kristil and I __________ around our tree. I joyfully watched her open her gifts. I __________ thanked Sister Esther in my heart.

【推荐2】The day I met Mr. Rupp was the first day of high school. I walked into his class with a T-shirt that _______, “Supermodels Suck”. He gave me a lot of _______ over the next four years, like how I should get my eyes to Berkeley where I belonged. By the way, I’m _______ there. The same is true for him as well.

I _______ his full-sleeve tattoos (纹身), which the school made him hide _______ in the great heat of summer. However, he was more than _______ to tell us the story of each one, like constellations (星座) instead of stars.

I remember that he didn’t _______ his standards and refused to give up on us. He was strict with us. Love is _______ sometimes.

The last time I _______ a letter to him, it was 2005—four years after I graduated. I had just become a ________, like him, and it had helped me again ________ the work he did with countless high school students over the years. He wrote me back and told me that his heart sang to ________ me. That’s the kind of teacher he was—the kind whose heart sang for his ________.

It’s hard to say what I’ll miss the most about him. There are simply too many ________ to sort through from those four years, and it ________ me to think he’ll never read this letter. I want to believe that he knew how much he ________ to his students, his community, his family and his colleagues.

He changed the ________ of everyone around him. Even now, he is reminding me to love life, and to tell the people I ________ how much they mean to me before it is too ________.

As my dear teacher and dear friend, he will be ________, but he will never be forgotten.

I was five when you were born. Looking at pictures from that time, I look so happy with you. I am holding you, I am smiling, I look _______. But I do not remember that feeling.

I was a daddy’s girl, _______ you were the happy one, the joker, the one who _______ the rewards of all my battles won or lost. So I must have decided that we were enemies, competitors for the love and attention of our parents, and this feeling is in the center of all my early memories. All I remember is _______ you.

So, as long as I could, I made your life a _______. I teased you, tricked you and abused you. You tell me it’s not as bad as I remember, but I _______ a couple of times when you were left in tears. Our little sister was born when I was 11, and very soon you two bonded strongly and pushed me aside.

___________, you quickly grew tall and strong, and soon you were able to overcome me _______. By the time I was at university, you were a teenager and we competed for higher _______: money, the family car, parental pride.

It all came to a ________ stop when I moved abroad as an exchange student. Almost 20 years has passed, and the hate ________ me some long time ago, while I wasn’t watching. And at the same time,________ must have crept in (悄悄地进入), sneaking somewhere through the back of my mind.

Despite all the abuse during those years, you have turned into a happy, friendly, passionate, generous human being. You have implied that you’ve forgiven me, or even that there is ________ to forgive. But I preferto remember the hurt - I will always hurt in ________ when I look back. I aim to be now what I always should have been.

I am so proud of you, my heart ________ with love for you and your sister. I will be forever glad that I have the chance to love you both.

Your sister