5 . We always celebrated my Dad’s November birthday on Thanksgiving Day, even after he entered a nursing home. As years went on, these events took on a(n) ______ meaning — a traditional birthday party for Dad, and a personal deep sense of ______ for all that he had done for me in my life.

When we knew that it might be Dad’s ______ birthday, the whole family decided to come together for a huge birthday celebration at the nursing home. It was a crowded party ______ all of us sitting around him.

Dad was a wonderful ______, and here was the biggest audience he’d ever had.

During a quiet moment, I announced that it was now Dad’s turn to ______ stories from us. I wanted everyone to tell Dad ______ we loved about him. One after another, we told stories from our hearts, while Dad listened with wet, ______ blue eyes. However, we ______ all kinds of lost details of the memories — stories about when we were little, stories about when Dad was young and stories that are shared as family ______ . Even the littlest grandchildren couldn’t ______ to tell their grandfather why they loved him. For a man who had been kind to so many people in his life, here was our ______ to honor him.

A few months later, at Dad’s memorial service, we fully realized what we had given Dad that night. Those were the stories people normally tell at a ______. They are told, then, full of tears with the hope that the departed will somehow hear the outpouring of love. ______ we had given those loving ______ to Dad when he was ______, told through laughter, accompanied by hugs and joy. I’m sure the stories and memories ______ over in his mind during his last months and days.

Words do ______, and they are enough. We need to say them, to speak them ______ to the ones we love, for everyone else to hear. That’s the way to ______ love and our chance to honor a person in life.

6 . We may have heard that it’s never too late to pursue your dreams. Now, a man _________ that to be true by achieving his lifelong _________ after 84 years. Earlier this year, 101-year-old Merrill Pittman Cooper _________ his high school diploma during a surprise graduation _________. His family worked with local school officials to _________ the celebration.

Cooper attended Storer College from 1934 to 1938, but life condition _________ him from finishing school and earning his _________. Without his father around, his mother worked as a live-in housekeeper in order to _________ his school tuition and board, but that wasn’t _________. After realizing his mother couldn’t __________ to make the final tuition payment for his senior year, the teen __________ her to move them to Philadelphia to be closer to her family.

In Philadelphia, Cooper worked to help his mother pay the bills and he was __________ as a city trolley (有轨电车) car operator in 1945. That job led him to a long and __________ career in transportation where he __________ became president of the local union in Pennsylvania and later vice president of the International Transport Workers Union in New York City. But despite such a successful __________, he always regretted not graduating and getting his high school diploma.

But now, after 84 years, Cooper was __________ able to see his lifelong dream come true. His family got the idea to __________ him with the honorary high school diploma. Cooper could hardly __________ his tears when he discovered their plan.

The whole thing was a dream come true for Cooper, who now __________ his diploma proudly from its perch (栖息处) on his bedroom dresser. “I can’t think of a __________ day,” says the inspiring 101-year-old man. “I’m really happy to have it.”