1 . My mom, who was 95, lived in an assisted living care center in St. Paul, Minnesota. I drove up from Chicago one weekend for a visit.

Her eyesight had grown ______ so she couldn’t read the newspapers. Her memory was ______. But her deep love for us, her four ______ and her grandkids, and of life, still ______ although not so brightly. I told Mom that her hands looked really ______ and asked if she’d like some skin cream.

“Sure,” she said.

So I rubbed some Jergen’s lotion into her leathery palms and bent fingers, which used to play the piano so ______. As I did this, she closed her eyes and ______ a deep sigh.

“That feels good,” she said.

That was the ______ conversation I had with my dear Mom in person. She died two months later. So I’m ______ now, on Mother’s Day, with this picture of her beautiful 95-year-old hands and all the ______ they carried.

Those are the hands that ______ me out of the baby bed when I was crying, and that rubbed my neck shoulders when I was an ______, pimply (长着粉刺的) teenager.

Those were the hands that ______ eggs and squeezed orange juice –– all for me and my three brothers and my father. And those were the hands that taught me how to play the piano, in the hope I’d learn how to make music and know its impressive ______ and power.

All I know to say this Mother’s Day is the same ______, inadequate phrase I used to say to her all the time and that I now hear our three kids say to my wife, Carol.

“Thanks, Mom.”

A Special Gift

I always believe that there are certain gifts sticking in our minds for a variety of reasons.

The gift given to me that I treasured most was a doll named Patsy. I met her in a gift shop when I was nine. On holding Patsy I immediately fell in love with her and couldn’t even bear to part from her. At that time, my mother noticed it and at Christmas, as I received the gift from her, I was surprised to find my dream doll in the box. From then on Patsy became my baby and I loved her dearly.

A month later, I was on my way to the cinema when I glimpsed some lovely gifts in pretty boxes through the window of the gift shop. Seeing them reminded me that my mother’s birthday was a few months away. Wouldn’t it be nice, I thought, if I could give her something really special, just like the gift she gave me? I stepped inside and caught sight of a beautiful dress hung on the coat stand, which I was sure my mother would like. So I asked the saleswoman its price.

The lady must have seen my disappointment when she told me how much it would cost. But she had a suggestion which immediately lifted my spirits. She took out a notebook from under the counter and wrote my name as well as the item I wanted to buy on it, and in return I paid her five cents from my six cents pocket money. It meant no candies that day but I didn’t care. At the age of nine, I made my very first installment (分期付款)and felt like a grown-up. From then on, every Saturday on my way to the cinema, I went to the shop and paid a few cents which the lady dutifully recorded on her notebook.

The day before my mother’s birthday, I paid the last two cents.

The special day finally came.

3 . Single mother Suzanne Vaughan has been working long hours for England’s NHS at Queen Elizabeth Hospital. It was her own decision, but a _______ one that forced her to be apart from her_______for nine weeks.

After more than two months working round the _______in the ICU, she finally had the chance to hug her daughters. On Sunday, she _______ appeared from behind the sofa,_______ Bella and Hettie, nine and seven, who had been staying with their aunt.

“It was a really difficult_______ but it was a commitment that needed to be made.” She didn’t know how long it would be _______ she saw them again, and never _______it to be nine weeks.

“But so many others have made the same_______to help people and fight this virus. It was something I needed to do — I started doing this job over 20 years ago because I wanted to help people. ”

“Work came first for nine weeks, but I think now it is time I should ________my girls first.”

Suzanne, normally working 28 hours a week,________ to work over 50 hours a week to help fight against the virus. The single mom phoned her daughters each day and they never let her________without a good morning text.

Bella has nothing but ________ for her mother. “I think the NHS are really great people trying to________the world. She had to be away to save people - she’s a________in my heart.”

9 . Eight years ago, Al Nixon decided to begin each day from a bench with a spectacular view of the St. Petersburg, Florida, waterfront. “I call it ‘life rising’ because watching a _________ makes me feel centered before starting my day.”

A year later, a woman stopped to say hello. “She said, ‘You know, every morning when I see you _________ here, I know that everything is going to be fine,” Nixon recalls. “That’s when I knew: I needed to pay _________ to the people walking past. I needed to make eye contact and let people know that we _________to each other.”

Instead of _________ staring ahead at the waterfront, Nixon started smiling at people and striking up _________. And pretty soon, more than a few early risers began _________him on the bench, sometimes unburdening themselves and asking him for advice about relationships, careers, and _________ problems.

So, every morning, weather _________, Nixon rises at 4:30 a.m. His presence, his __________ to listen, and his kindness toward __________, have led some to nickname him the Sunshine Mayor.

No matter what problem a person wants to air, Nixon __________ an ear, which even developed some __________ friendships. “You have to have an open heart and an open head because you never know who’s going to __________ and what they might need,” Nixon says. “Every person who stops by the __________ deserves my undivided attention.”