1 . “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish, by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”---Albert Einstein

If you have a kid with special needs in the school system, you’re likely to have come across that saying hanging on a classroom wall. My five-year-old daughter Syona has cerebral palsy (脑瘫) and it means, combined with her communication and sight problems, that normal standard isn’t always an accurate measure of her abilities.

By now you have probably heard about Chris Ulmer, the 26-year old teacher in Jacksonville, Florida, who starts his special education class by calling up each student to give them much admiration and a high-five. I couldn’t help but be reminded of Syona’s teacher and how she supports each kid in a very similar way. Ulmer recently shared a video of his teaching experience. “I have seen their confidence increase rapidly.” he said. All I could think was: how lucky these students are to have such good teachers.

Syona’s teacher has an attitude that can best be summarized in one word: wonderful. Her teacher doesn’t focus on what can’t be done---she focuses on what can be done. Over the past several months, my husband Dilip and I have seen Syona’s confidence increase greatly. She uses words she wouldn’t have thought of using before. She recently told me about her classmates trip to Ecuador and was very proud when I understood her on the first try.

I actually wonder what the influence would be if we did something similar to what Ulmer does with his students in our home. We’ve recently started our day by reminding each other of the good qualities we all have. If we are reminded of our strengths on a regular basis, we will become increasingly confident about progress and success.

3 . I try to be a good father. Cook my kids good dishes, and take them to photo shoots. But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck. Eighty-five times he’s pushed his disabled son, Rick, in marathons.

This love story began in Winchester Mass., 43 years ago, when Rick was strangled (缠住) by the umbilical cord (脐带) during birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs (四肢). “He’ll be a vegetable (植物人) the rest of his life,” doctors told Dick and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. “Put him in an institution.” But the Hoyts weren’t buying it. They noticed the way Rick’s eyes followed them around the room.

When Rick was 11, they took him to the engineering department at Tufts University. Equipped with a computer, Rick was finally able to communicate. After a high school classmate was paralyzed (使瘫痪) in an accident, and the school organized a charity run for him, Rick said, “Dad, I want to do that.” How was Dick, a man who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he tried. That day changed Rick’s life. “Dad,” he typed, “when we were running, it felt like I wasn’t disabled anymore!”

That sentence changed Dick’s life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. They even decided to try marathons. “No way,” Dick was told by a race official. They weren’t quite a single runner, and they weren’t quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few years, Dick and Rick joined the massive field and ran anyway. In 1983, they ran another marathon so fast that they made the qualifying time for the Boston Marathon the following year.

Now they’ve done 212 triathlons and 85 marathons. “My dad is the Father of the Century,” Rick typed.

4 . My father never kept anything for emotional purpose—except once. I was the only one in my family who cared about baseball and I always _______ watching my favorite players at Yankee Stadium. One winter, I wrote down a _______ of the summer dates and dreamed every night. To my surprise, one evening I saw my father examine it before going out to work.

The following Sunday, he told me, “Let’s put away some money into a _______ each week, and maybe we can go to Yankee Stadium this summer.” I immediately washed out a jar and _______a label: YANKEE STADIUM FUND, 1960.

Each of us _______ to the jar weekly. _______, we still hadn’t gone to a game because my father had to work every Saturday. So one day, I _______ him of the remaining time, and then he _______ me, “Don’t worry and we’ll have a free Saturday.”

On the morning of the last game, I sat waiting hopelessly with no reply of my father who had been to work suddenly appeared and yelled, “I got two tickets!”

I could hardly _______ when we finally sat together, father and son, ________ my New York Yankees. I sat cheering but for my father, all I could see is a face ________ tiredness from working all week.

In 1963, my father died suddenly while working. In his bedroom, I noticed a ________ ticket in his yellowed book, which ________, October 1, 1960, General Admission. My father, who ________nothing for emotional reasons, had decided to keep this, a(an) ________ of our afternoon together.

6 . In my childhood, my mother spent her evening hours doing something for someone else. Sometimes she knitted hats for babies, and at other times, she cooked chicken soup for sick neighbors. Therefore, I wasn’t surprised when one evening my mother announced she had undertaken a new project.

“I am going to telephone seniors,” said my mother. “Every night? But you don’t even know these people.” “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “What’s important is that I listen.”

I was sixteen years old and couldn’t understand why my mother was willing to spend her evenings talking to strangers. She had friends and my two older sisters to call if she felt lonely. “They will talk your ear off. Some people didn’t even stop to catch breath,” I said.

My attitude didn’t stop my mother’s enthusiasm for the project. That evening, she settled on the sofa and dialed. When she finished the call, I said, “Why do you care whether she had cookies or rice pudding for dessert?” My mother grasped one of my hands and said in a proud tune, “I’m the only person she talked to today.”

It took me more than thirty years to fully understand the meaning of that statement. Now, as my mother is nearing eighty, I find myself thinking about those nightly calls she used to make. I am often the only person who telephones my mother, and sometimes I’m the only person she speaks to all day. I ask her what she cooked for dinner, but mostly I just listen as she describes a walk she took, or how her dog Lucky stole foods from the refrigerator. I realize that my mother’s calls were life lines that ensured housebound seniors remained connected to the world. Without her, their world would have been empty.