2 . Desperate to help his 96-year-old mother to speak her mother tongue again, Keith McDermott made an ____ on social media and was met with a flood of kind responses. The old ____, Ray, was moved to tears after talking on the phone with one of the ____respondents in Welsh.

Ray moved to America after meeting her husband when she was only 18, hence waving goodbye to her ____in Wales. She continued to speak Welsh with her mum keeping a little bit of ____. But she lost her beloved mum four decades ago and hadn’t spoken Welsh since.

____ suffering from short-term memory loss and sometimes not remembering what she has done recently, Ray’s childhood memories in Wales remain crystal ____”She wants to ____, but I know, ___ her age, such long-distance travel is out of the question, “ said Keith. ”Once she mentioned: I wish I could speak Welsh again but I suppose I never will. It was then that I thought I should make her wish____”

So Keith, 70, ____ on social media on a group called “New York Welsh” asking for any Welsh speakers that could speak Welsh with his mum. And he was ____ , as well as a little shocked, to receive over 30 responses within half an hour. “Speaking with Melisa, her (Ray’s) Welsh was a little rusty. A few more Welsh conversations and I think she’d be ____ again, ” added Keith.

“When you have a parent in their nineties, you will find you two have something in common: you’re both old, so I am very sympathetic to my mother’s feelings of loneliness and isolation. I’m feeling it myself. ” Keith hopes to ____ more Welsh phone conversations for his mum and Melisa has promised to send Ray some short stories in Welsh to ____ her of her life in Wales.

4 . After the movers had taken the furniture and boxes, once the house was empty of everything but dust and echoes, I took from my pocket a(n) _______I had found in the garden several days before. A friend had _______saying goodbye to the house with a special ritual (仪式) of the Memory Stone.

The idea is to take a stone that you like and walk through the house and gardens, projecting your _______onto it. I wasn't sure it would work, but I decided to _______ it. One of the things that _______me about leaving the house was the idea of leaving behind all the memories. Perhaps this offered a way to take _______with me somehow.

I stared downstairs. It was a beautiful day and the light was shining through the windows. At first, the memories didn't come _______. I sat there, staring at the stone, but _______ happened. Just some memories of memories--- _______I had seen in photographs, words I had read in letters and diaries.

But after just a few minutes, that ________. Suddenly, the room was crowded with people I hadn't seen for years, as well as some people I had seen just the day before. It's winter, and we're all in the kitchen, making a(n) ________ for Christmas. It's summer, and we are trying to find ________ from the heat. I'm 11, trying on my new school uniform in front of the ________. My mother is coming upstairs to say good night and give me a hug. I have come in________ for my curfew (宵禁) ；I am tiptoeing up the stairs, hoping I won't ________anybody. My father is dancing with my friend Gideon. Now my father is old and I am sitting close to him on his bed, saying goodbye to him for what would ________ to be the last time.

One moment I found myself ________; and in another, I surprised myself by bursting into laughter. But mostly, the experience was strangely ________.

It's been several months since I walked out of the house for the last time. I don't know ________this stone I have, this piece of the place, can really hold so much. ________, right now, as pick it up and gaze at it, I seem to be back home.