1 . Bill Sumiel had been suffering from kidney disease for years and had been on dialysis (透析) for all those years. He was on the transplant (移植) list, but no matches had yet _________. So he continued with his treatments.

It was a Friday in Oct. 2020, and Sumiel had booked an Uber ride home from the treatment center. Timothy Letts was driving to visit a friend when he received the _________ for Sumiel’s ride home. The trip was out of Letts’s way. Still, he _________ the order, figuring if the _________ was coming from a medical facility, he probably needed a ride.

After Sumiel got into the car, the pair got to chatting. Sumiel revealed that he was _________ a kidney donor. Letts joked that he’d be a _________ donor candidate, given that he didn’t drink or smoke. Sumiel agreed, _________ he didn’t think much of it. As the car neared Sumiel’s house, Letts said, “I’d like to see if I could be a match to give you a kidney.”

“I was shocked,” Sumiel recalls. He was shaking so hard and could _________ write his name when they exchanged contact information. After the initial excitement, Sumiel started feeling a bit less _________—he wondered if it had just been a(n) __________ moment. Would he hear from him? And what was the __________ they’d be a match?

But Letts was __________ to his word. Letts had contacted the kidney transplant program quickly. After a long screening process, the results showed: Letts was a(n) __________ donor. In Dec. 2021, 14 months after they ended up in the same __________ by chance, Sumiel and Letts had their surgeries. It was a(n) __________. Today Sumiel is doing well, and he and Letts still keep in touch.

2 . I am one of the healthcare assistants in our neighborhood charity organization. Our _____________ is to support families and the individuals who are in the end-of-life stage. We do whatever they need us to do. We can’t change the inevitable, but we can make a   _____________   .

Working for the charity, we operate every single day of the year, and I find myself _____________even on holidays. You might assume that helping to _____________   a person facing death would be a sad experience. But what may _____________   you is that it’s not. The families make the most of the time they have _____________   . They remain _____________ . Everyone knows what’s coming; they understand that their loved one is _____________ , but it’s not a time for   _____________; it’s a time of togetherness and warmth.

I remember one particular family with three sisters and the fourth who was in the end-of-life stage. When I arrived, she was   _____________ , and I knew she might not   _____________ it through the night. But sitting with the sisters, talking about their childhood and sharing photos, it was a special time for me. The patient had asked for _____________ earlier that day, and they made sure she got them. She went to sleep, and we lost her that night. The sisters   _____________ it, they thanked me, and it was a(n)   _____________ experience. I’ll always remember the sweet and bitter peaches!

There are some heartbreaking situations, but when we are there   _____________ the end, making the affair easier for the families, love outshines darkness.

5 . The wind was blowing from all directions. Another Iowa storm was _________.

Alice ran into the farmhouse on the hill above Honey Creek. Thunder rattled (咯咯作响) along as she looked out the window to the railroad tracks below. They _________ her of father, a railroad man. Alice loved hearing the trains rumble (轰隆) _________ over Honey Creek Bridge. Every day she heard the trains’ sounds and knew their _________, when they would arrive and when they would leave.

The windows of the little house continued to rattle as the storm invaded the night. She watched the stream rise higher — almost _________ the tracks of Honey Creek Bridge. Suddenly, Alice heard a loud crash. She knew that something must have gone wrong with the _________

Taking her lantern, Alice slid down the _________ hillside to the washed-out bridge. She would have to make her way through the dark woods to the Moingona train depot (中转站). There she could get help and stop the Atlantic Express, but first she had to _________ the Des Moines River Bridge.

As Alice finally reached the bridge, the wind _________ her lantern, nearly 700 feet of bridge lay ahead. __________ and shaking, Alice got down on her hands and knees and began to crawl (爬).

When she was halfway across the bridge, lightning showed a giant tree in the river rushing towards her. Luckily, the tree __________ its course and she felt its spray (喷扫) of water. Finally, Alice __________ her way across and ran to the train depot. Breaking through the door, she shouted something about __________ the Atlantic Express, then fell down to the floor.

Alice’s story did not go __________. Newspapers spread her story. And Alice received a medal for her __________ along with a lifetime train pass.

7 . The dancer who performs in a wheelchair

Joe performed at the Royal Ballet as a child but thought his career was over after he lost full use of his legs.

Naturally he was quite _______, which was good for dance but it’s not good for life. About five weeks into his fourth year, he had grown much taller. His flexibility couldn’t match the height quickly and he ended up _______ his left knee. Then he was _______ a car accident. So he thought his dancing _______.

Joe now _______ inclusive ballet dancing for differently abled dancers. Once he came across vocational (职业的) trainers who were _______ to train people in a wheelchair. But he was quite lucky _______ he had received vocational training before he gained his disability. Over time, Joe’s performance has become outstanding.

Nowadays, as the _______ of a Royal Ballet show with a dance partner Issy, Joe often wonders how other dancers like him can _______ the same level of training.

Joe also explains the new ballet dancing. “Maybe you think of it as a(n) ________ ballet technique. In fact, we twist it and ________ it into an entirely new and different thing.”

Isabel Lubach, a Royal Ballet dancer says, “It just feels so ________. It’s just such a unique way of working to find those sort of different challenges. It feels really ________ to be on the stage with other differently abled dancers.”

There’s always more work to do, ________ in the classical ballet world, different dancers have different accessible needs. To address the problem, they ________ need to have conversations, and look at how they can redefine the ballet technique to everyone.

8 . When you're a kid, theme days at school are a big deal. They're a chance to dress up in something special and   _____________from your regular routine. So when you can't participate in one, it is sad. That happened to a first-grade student named Levi recently. _____________his bus driver stepped in to _____________the day.

As the driver, Larry Farrish noticed the boy was   _____________. When Farrish asked what was wrong, the boy   _____________he didn't have pajamas (睡衣) for Pajama Day. Farrish knew he should do something. After   _____________his job, he headed over to a store. There, he   _____________a pair of pajamas that might _____________ the boy and drove back to the school.

He asked the office to call Levi down, and that's when their days took a major   _____________ "I can tell Mr Larry is   ________________" Levi said. "When he got me the pajamas, I did a   ________________ cry.”

As a driver, Farish feels that his   ________________allows him to connect with kids more and he takes the job seriously. Doing so can influence how kids ________________. Not only do kids learn by   ________________, but when they know they're   ________________, they do thrive (成长).

9 . On February 17th, the Clermont County Animal Shelter, Ohio, shared a story. A woman met with her missing dog Will again.

While ________ the shelter’s Facebook post forwarded by friends in her community, Hannah saw a dog named Rome that was to be available at the shelter’s weekend ________ event and that dog looked quite ________.

Hannah explained in her Facebook post that Will, a six-year-old went missing from her home in 2019. Although her family looked everywhere, they couldn’t ________ their missing baby.

A shelter volunteer said, “Just yesterday we ________ a message accompanied by photos with a detailed description of Will’s ________ in the hope that the dog brought to our shelter and renamed Rome was ________ Will!” But Rome was scheduled to be at the Take Me Home event today! Learning this, the volunteer, in a bit of ________ quickly sent a message back that Rome would be at the event! “We would love this family to be ________ and we just had to ________ whether this was Will after all these years!” It turned out a big yes. The volunteer continued, “The ________ story serves as a reminder of the incredible impact that the Internet can have in bringing communities together, especially in times of ________. Thank you all for ________ Will’s post.”

It was nothing short of a ________ and we are sure Hannah and her family are ________ to have their dog back!