1 . I’d like to share a story from over 25 years ago that changed my life. During a vacation trip to California, I managed to ________ some time to stay with family friends in northern California but that meant in the short time I needed to find my way to the bus station, some 30 miles away. Being a poor student, I had little ________ to get there.

I tried to call various taxis but they were all too ________ to pick me up. Then, I got one person on the phone who agreed to transport me with limited ________! He came to pick me up about 45 minutes later. The driver was ________ and I remember wondering ________ the taxi didn’t have a meter. The driver was so kind. He knew I was upset so he ________ me with stories and good conversation. He said I looked like his ________.

At one point, I asked him why he ________ so little compared to the others. Then, he explained that he was actually ________ and hadn’t removed his number from the phone book. When I called, clearly ________, he felt that he should come to help.

This man drove an hour to help a stranger he didn’t know for a fee that barely covered his gas, if that! This man’s ________warms my heart every time I think of him.________, I didn’t get his name and his face has since faded from my memory. But he is on my ________often and I wish I could thank him ________. “Thank you Mr. Angel Taxi-Man! I hope your granddaughter knows what a wonderful grandfather she has!”

3 . Mid-afternoon on a particularly busy Tuesday, I took leave of my desk at work and walked into a local Starbucks, only to find a space where neither my clients (客户) nor my children would ask me to do something.

Inside, I ran into Kate, a co-worker of mine. The topic of parenthood came up. I complained about how packed my schedule was. From the minute I woke up to the minute I fell asleep, I was constantly in demand and always had someone knocking at the door. But a bit of sadness seemed to come over Kate’s face.

“Well, my daughter’s in San Francisco and she doesn’t seem to need me at all these days.” Kate said. It was in that moment that I realized although I might often feel in high demand, there will come a day when I’ll actually miss that same stress I now complain about.

And as our conversation continued, it turned to our children’s younger years, with Kate smiling proudly, thinking of the little boy and girl she raised who are now a man and a woman. But I noticed her smile was marked with regret. She explained that she often wondered about what she could have done differently when her children were in their earlier years.

This got me thinking. Is regret an unfortunate footnote (注脚) to parenthood? With that in mind, I asked six older parents one question: What is your biggest regret from your early days as a parent?

It turned out that all of them thought they could have done it better. But, each of them also has a strong, healthy relationship with their kids. Whatever regrets their parents might have had about their upbringing, one thing is clear—it didn’t affect them in a meaningful way.

The bottom line is, we all feel like we could be doing this parenting thing better, And quite clearly, years later, we’re still going to look back and wish we tried things differently. But the past can’t be changed, and neither should it.