2 . Every family is a foundation of society. It is where one learns fundamental values and beliefs. It is the first place one goes when they need love and support.     1     A strong family provides a loving, supportive environment that helps you reach your full potential. Here are some key things to keep in mind if you're looking to strengthen your family bonds.

Nurture (培养) healthy communication. The key to any strong relationship is communication.       2     Family members need to feel comfortable communicating about both the good and the bad. Honest communication can help solve problems, set boundaries, and provide support. By nurturing healthy communication within the family, you can lay the foundation for solid relationships with others.

    3     In today's fast-paced world, it's easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle (忙碌) and forget to slow down and enjoy life. One of the best ways to build a strong foundation for your family is to make time for quality bonding experiences. You can share meals, take a family vacation, or spend an evening playing video games together and celebrate every milestone together.     4    

Facing life’s challenges together. No family is perfect, and every family will face challenges at some point in their lives. The key is to address those challenges together as a team. There will be times when family members will disagree on how to face a challenge.     5     Remember, the goal is to work together as a team and support one another through thick and thin. And by doing so. you can build a strong foundation for your family.

Building a solid foundation for your family takes time, effort, and patience. But it is well worth it when you see the lasting bonds.

4 . Overhead the sky was bright with stars. “Watch!” Incredibly, as his father spoke, one of the stars moved. In a streak of golden fire it flashed across the astonished heavens. And before the wonder of this could fade, another star leaped from its place, then another, moving quickly towards the sea.

“What is it?” the child whispered. “Shooting stars. They come every year on a certain night in August. I thought you would like to see the show.”

That was all: just an unexpected glimpse of something mysterious and beautiful. But, back in bed, the child stared for a long time into the dark, fascinated by the knowledge all around the quiet house. The night was full of the silent music of the falling stars.

Decades have passed, but I remember that night still, because I was the fortunate seven-year-old boy whose father believed that a new experience was more important for a small boy than an unbroken night’s sleep.

No doubt I had some usual childhood playthings, but these are forgotten now. What I remember is the night the stars fell. And the day we rode in a guard’s van, the time we tried to touch the crocodile, the telegraph we made that really worked. I remember the ‘trophy table’ in the hall where we children were encouraged to exhibit things we had found — snake skins, seashells, flowers, arrowheads, anything unusual or beautiful.

I remember the books left by my bed that pushed back my horizons and sometimes actually changed my life. Once my father gave me Zuleika Dobson, Max Beerbohm’s classic story of undergraduate life at Oxford. I liked it, and told him so.

“Why don’t you think about going there yourself?” he said casually. A few years later with luck and a scholarship, I did.

My father had, to a marvellous degree, the gift of opening doors for his children, of leading them into areas of splendid newness. This subtle art of adding dimensions to a child’s world doesn’t necessarily require a great deal of time. It simply involves doing things more often with our children instead of for them or to them.

7 . Beth Booker of Florida, turned to Twitter for help last week after seeing the images of her 78-year-old grandmother’s home in Fort Myers Beach, Florida being in water. In the days before Hurricane Ian struck her grandmother’s community, Beth and her husband helped her granny, Carole McDanel, prepare herself and her home for it.

Her granny wanted to stay where she had been living for more than two decades. She felt safe to stay because Ian was heading north for another city and the house had survived quite a few major hurricanes in history. In addition, the home contained priceless family memories and heirlooms (传家宝), among which were photos of Booker’s dad, who passed away when she was only five years old. After her dad’s death, Booker had to live with her grandmother, McDanel.

Once the storm struck, Booker received updates from her granny, who shared photos and videos showing flood started to fill the home. In her last phone call with granny, Booker told her granny to climb on the roof if the flood waters continued to climb. Unable to communicate with her granny any longer, Booker turned to Twitter for help with everything from searching for her granny to contacting local emergency officials.

The Fort Myers area was left devastated Wednesday after Hurricane Ian. On Thursday, as rescue crews came over to search for survivors, Booker’s husband and friend began their own search for her granny by boat. Just a few hours later, at 4 p.m. on Thursday, Booker tweeted the news that her husband and friend found granny sitting on her own sofa, where she was able to remain safe during the storm.

McDanel and Booker, who declined to be interviewed, said in a statement that they felt grateful for the support they had received and that they are calling for the world to continue the same energy and love into recovery and relief efforts for their community.

8 . The other day, Dino, our neighbor across the road, saw me in front of our new home in Italy and called out, “Good evening!” His English, though _________, is much better than my Italian. “You OK?” he asked.

He had_________ me before, usually with a good morning or a good evening. Once, seeing him trying to_________a tall street lamp, I’d held the ladder for him to climb. But that was pretty much it for us: a general air of_________, nothing more.

I’ d just_________46 years living in New York City. But now I ‘ m living in a town in Italy’ s Puglia region, and everyone here except my family is a_________. And, living in the countryside as we do, I’ve started to feel pains of rural_________

This moment therefore seemed an _________to get to know Dino a little. I could have stayed behind our gates to talk with him through his gates. But_________I crossed the road toward him. I stood in the street talking with Dino and his wife, Grazia-I in English, they in Italian. One minute later they______________me in for a tour.

Here was a fig(无花果)tree, ____________ripe figs. Dino picked a few of the fruits, tore one in half, and put one half in his mouth. He handed me the other half and ____________ to me to follow suit, and I did. “Delicious!” I____________

I once saw a wonderful documentary about Gregory Peck. In it, the older actor travels to Ireland to meet his new grandson. But first, wandering a field, he ____________ a fig tree. He picks a fig and eats it with____________delight. To me, the____________ captures the sweetness of life and how such sweetness is all around us if only we’d ____________to reach out and taste it.

Dino and I ____________ this sequence with trees bearing plums and walnuts, too-he picking, I sampling. In spite of our____________in language neither of us knew many of the other’s words - nothing important was lost. Both of us understood all we needed to understand: that now we were ____________neighbors.

9 . When reading, my mother likes to slice a paragraph or a sentence out and attach it to the wall of her kitchen. She picks boring sentences that puzzle me. But I prefer copying favorite bright lines into a journal in soft, gray No. 2 pencil, word by word.

She doesn’t know any of this. There's nothing shocking: for our chatting. we seldom begin certain conversations though we talk on the phone weekly, sometimes making each other laugh so hard that I choke and she cries. But what we don't say could fill up rooms. Fights with my father. Small failures in school. Anything that really upsets us.

My mother has never told me “I love you, Lisa.”—as if the four-word absence explains who I am—so I carry it with me, like a label on me. The last time she almost spoke the words was two years ago, when she called to tell me a friend had been in hospital. I said, “I love you, Mom.” She stopped for a while and then said, “Thank you.” I haven't said it since, but I've wondered why my mother doesn't until I've found a poem that supplies words for the blank spaces I try to understand in our conversations:

Don’t fill up on bread. I say absent-mindedly. The servings here are huge.

My son, middle-aged, says: Did you really just say that to me?

What he doesn’t know is that when we’re walking together, I desire to reach for his hand.

It's humble, yet heartbreaking. After copying it down in my journal, I emailed it to mom, adding “This poem makes me think of you.” My mother doesn’t read poetry—or at least, she doesn’t tell me, and I felt nervous clicking “Send”.

She never mentioned the poem. But the next time I went home for vacation, I noticed something new in the kitchen fixed to an antique board: the poem. The board hung above the heater, the warmest spot in the kitchen. The poem still hangs there. Neither my mother nor I have ever spoken about it.

10 . Families provide a source of comfort and safety through love, support, and acceptance. Spending quality time with your loved ones benefits you in many ways and here are some of them:

    1    

In a world where you may feel like everyone is watching, it can be stressful to show your true colors for fear of being judged. According to Psych Central, sharing your personal opinions with a family member allows you to reconnect with your true self, and your family will benefit from easy and open communication.

Get emotional support.

Have you ever been in a situation where emotions are running high? Your natural instinct may be to turn to your family for emotional support. When you’re feeling sad or on edge, it can offer great comfort and ease you through the situation.     2    

Allow you to develop valuable skills.

You can build self-esteem (自尊) by learning problem-solving and communication skills from your parents.     3     What’s more, family gatherings or dinnertime interactions can help families learn to listen, and build trust, confidence, understanding, and respect.

Establish loving relationships.

    4     Spending time together as a family, without distractions, creates an atmosphere beneficial to open communication and connections. Because of your tight schedule, it’s easy to forget to check with your family about how their day went. Set aside a regular time to communicate.

Create lifelong memories.

Many things can be done with family members to create positive memories, including going on family vacations, spending quality time together at home, or discovering a fun hobby you can enjoy.     5     What’s more, they help reinforce (加强) family values.