1 . The Hard Truth

One day, Marissa noticed a spider web, shining in the sunlight. A spider was spinning _________ on it. The spider wasn’t trying to be something else, like a butterfly or a bee, Marissa thought. It was happy to be exactly what it was and to do what it was good at.

What came naturally to Marissa was _________. She could paint or draw all day long and never get bored. However, a few weeks ago Marissa signed up for high jump. Because her mother had been a high jump _______ in school, she thought it would make her mother happy. But now she _______ that however hard she worked, she would never be a high jump star like her mother.

One night, halfway through her homework, Marissa fell _________. When she woke up, the clock read 1:00 A. M. Marissa got into a panic. There was still so much _________ to do, but she really needed her rest for track practice. Marissa had always been a good student, but now track was risking her _________.

Then a dark thought crossed Marissa’s mind. If she _________ some of her classes, she would be off the track team. That was one way to solve her problem.

After a week of _________ her homework, letters had been mailed out to parents listing grades, and Marissa knew the letters would show that her grades had __________ a lot. She walked home with slow heavy steps, knowing her __________ plan had worked.

Just as Marissa had __________, her mother was waiting with the __________ in her hand. “What’s happening to your grades? And more importantly, what’s happening to you?” she asked.

With tears in her eyes, Marissa admitted her __________. “I only joined the track team to make you proud of me. I hated it, __________ I didn’t want to disappoint you. I thought if I were failing in my classes, Coach would kick me off the team. What a __________ I’ve made of everything.”

Marissa watched her mother’s face turn from anger to __________. “Marissa, I was always proud of you. You didn’t need to do the high jump to make me happy. Now you have a lot of hard work in front of you because you made a bad __________.”

Marissa thought again about the spider. She realized she had lost sight of her __________ and twisted her web. Now she had to go back and __________ that web.

2 . Sports are important in our family. Both of our sons were high-school athletes. So, I shouldn’t have been _________ when Lauren announced she was going out for the girls’ basketball team. But I was, because she has Down syndrome(唐氏综合症). My wife and I never told Lauren that she was _________. We treated her like our other children. We didn’t want her to feel disabled.

“I’m gonna play basketball, Daddy.” Lauren ran to meet me when I came in from work. She flew into my arms and lingered long in my embrace. “That’s _________, honey,” I patted her shoulder and walked into the kitchen. My wife spoke slowly, her tone steady. “What Lauren’s trying to say is that she’s joining the girls’ high-school basketball team.” Her words _________ in. Everything that could happen flashed through my mind. But what could we do?

Mid-November, the season’s first basketball game arrived. It got off to a good start, but soon Verden, Lauren’s team, was behind. Lauren _________ followed the movement on the court and reacted to every shot. Even though she wasn’t playing, she looked as if she were having the time of her life.

Just less than two minutes were left, and Verden was down by seventeen points when Lauren was called in for the game! She _________ the others fairly well. From her agile movement and eager expression, I knew she was desperate to score for her team. Then they passed Lauren the ball. She _________ it. She shot. She scored! A few minutes later, Lauren joined us in the stands. “Did you see? I scored! I made a _________!”

For sixteen years, I’d tried hard to _________ Lauren from feeling like she was different. But watching Lauren in the game, I saw that she really was different—not physically or emotionally, but __________.

3 . When I was 13, my only purpose was to become the star on our football team. That meant _______ Miller King, who was the best player at our school.

Football season started in September and all summer long I worked out. I carried my football everywhere for _______.

Just before September, Miller was struck by a car and lost his right arm. I went to see him after he came back from _______. He looked very pale, but he didn’t cry.

That season, I broke all of Miller’s records while he watched the home games from the bench. We went 10:1 and I was named most valuable player, ________ I often had crazy dreams in which I was to blame for Miller’s accident.

One afternoon, I was crossing the field to go home and saw Miller ________ when he was going over a fence — which wasn’t hard to climb if you had both arms. I’m sure I was the last person in the world he wanted to accept ________ from. But even that challenge he accepted, I helped him move slowly over the fence. When we were finally safe on the other side, he said to me, “You know, I didn’t tell you this during the season, but you did ________. Thank you for filling in for me.”

His words freed me from my bad ________. I thought to myself, how even without an arm he was more of a leader. Damaged but not defeated, he was still ahead of me. I was right to have ________ him. From that day on, I grew ________ and a little more real.

5 . Nixon, 59 years old, was born and grew up in St. Petersburg. Each morning, he sits on a bench, watches the sunrise, and connects with _________ from all walks of life.

Eight years ago, he decided to begin each day from a bench (a kind of chair) with an impressive view of the St. Petersburg waterfront (圣彼得堡海滨), because it made him feel calm and _________ before starting his day.

About a year later, a woman stopped to say hello, and she said something that _________ Nixon’s view on his daily visit. She said, “Every morning when I see you sitting here, I know everything is going to be OK.” That’s when Nixon _________ he needed to pay attention to the people walking past.

Instead of staring straight ahead at the waterfront, Nixon started _________ at people and talking to them. And pretty soon, some early risers began _________ him on the bench, sometimes sharing their pressure and asking him for advice about personal problems.

No matter what problem a person wants to _________, Nixon lends an ear. One day, a couple came by to talk about their problems. The husband was always working. It was destroying their _________. Nixon told him, “You have to know what’s really important.” The man admitted he’d put everything he had into his _________ for many years instead of focusing on his family. “He started to cry and agreed that he needed to __________,” Nixon says. “We hugged each other and became friends after that.”

Nixon was always happy to listen, and he listens without __________ and without any kind of return expected. “You have to listen with an open heart, because you never know who’s going to walk up,” Nixon says. He is a loving and loyal __________ to many. For those who walked past the bench, they were always __________ with a smile and asked how they were doing. No topic is off limits, but some people don’t want to talk. They simply want to sit next to someone and share the __________. Once a woman stopped and just sat with Nixon for an hour; then she said thanks and walked away. She just wanted a moment of peace and to know she wasn’t __________.

And at that moment, she truly wasn’t.

6 . My journey home from school is nothing special. I usually find a seat and start checking my _______, making sure, like everyone else, not to look at other people.

But last Tuesday was _______. I was texting my friends when the train suddenly stopped. Then after about five minutes, people were starting to get a bit _______. Then the announcement came: “We are sorry to announce that this train is delayed. A train is badly broken down in front of us.”

There was a loud groan (叹息) throughout the carriage but then something unexpected happened: _______ strangers started talking to each other. At first, everyone just complained about the _______, but then people started talking about real things. I chatted to a couple of young tourists sitting opposite me. Then I decided to go for a walk down the train. I met a woman who had been a _______ at my school several years before.

People offered each other food and drink. A young woman took her _______ and soon we were singing along. Then we heard a sick boy in another part of the train needed help, and the woman from my school jumped into action. It turned out she was a nurse, and when she came back she was welcomed as a _______.

Then, after two and a half hours, we started moving again. Everyone _______ and some people, complete strangers three hours before, even hugged.

I took the train again on Wednesday but nothing ________. I’ll never forget the day the train stopped and people started talking.

7 . I glanced to my left and right as I got ready at the starting line. The sight of other competitors who had confident and fierce-looking faces got me goose bumps and I was even more _______ than before.

“On your mark, get set... Go!” shouted the race official. I pushed myself forward with all my might and started running as though a pride of man-eating lions were coming after me. As I ran, I could see the other competitors catching up with me. All of a sudden, I fell down on my knees. A hundred pairs of eyes bored into me, watching me _______ to get up. _______ no matter how hard I tried, I just could not do it.

“No, it cannot end like this. I have to _______ this race.” I thought to myself. However, the pain from my injury was so unbearable that I felt totally _______. I really wanted to give up.

Out of despair, I gazed up at the finishing line. Just then, a kind competitor _______ her hand to me.

“Thank you...” I whispered _______ as I grabbed her hand and she pulled me up.

She lent me her shoulder for support, and I _______ forward. The crowd cheered at this brilliant display of _______. Together, both of us crossed the finishing line.

Even though I never got the chance to learn her name, I will always remember her as the one who stepped forward to help me when I was in ________.

8 . On August 23rd, my son was out mountain biking with his teacher and friends. As usual, we were waiting at home with lunch ready. At 12:15, he still hadn’t _____. Then, we got the call that he was badly hurt.

We _____ up the mountain in the car. He was in the kind of pain you never want to see. We got him to the hospital for X-rays to be told his collarbone(锁骨) was broken. Collarbones are incredibly _____ to treat, as you can’t just put them in a cast (石膏).

We got him a “figure-of-8” support that keeps both his shoulders aligned (成一直线) . It was the best _____ for making sure the bone grew back straight. Sleeping was very painful for him, and in the next few months everything came crashing down. No _____. No activity. _____ birthday party plans. We got into a new normal at home. We found other things for him to do that weren’t _____, such as reading and making artwork.

I would never _____ an injury on anyone; yet, it is an immediate way to learn how to be patient with life, with the _____, and with each other. My biggest lesson has been that my child may have learned more from this injury than anything else he’s gone through this year, and, ______, it will serve him for life.

9 . It was a _________ night and I was in a foreign country. Though I knew everything here well, I might still need other people to help me with _________.

One day, I took a midnight _________from the capital to the city where I lived. I was trying not to sleep as I would be home towards 2 am, but funnily enough I fell asleep and closed my eyes only when the train passed the _________where I was due (预计) to get off. The controllers told me to leave at the next station and wait for the train to my city at 4 am. I stood at the station but it looked like it would be _________ to wait there alone.

One of the controllers _________there got off with me, saying he felt it was not safe to leave me there alone. He invited me to get into his car because it was freezing outside. I was a bit doubtful, but I decided to _________him. Entering the car, we started talking. I told him that I had often passed this station, but never visited the city. So he offered me a _________around the town. I was completely shocked, but did not feel anything _________. He drove me around and at about 4 am he sent me back to the station.

His help with the emergency (突发事件) made the night unforgettable and full of __________. What I could do was just passing on the kindness in my life.