1 . I had been saying goodbye to my mom for ten years. That was how ______ she had breast cancer. At first, there was the fear that she would die. But as she ______ series of treatments, life took ______ a new normal. But cancer is an unrelenting (冷酷无情的) foe. It was a journey from ______ to hope again and again, and only painkillers could keep her ______ . At 66, my mom was dying, but we could do nothing. I ______ praying for God to heal her but rather to take her. I learned that dying is the ______ healing. How brokenhearted when a patient or family is ______ a death.

My mother showed me how to fight her foe with knowledge, humor and ______ . And when the time came, she showed me how to die with grace, dignity, humor and wisdom. ______ , while it is hard to escape from the ______ , I want to anticipate the joy of the day when all the pain and hurt of this world will be over. One day, I will die and ______ those I love. One day, those I love will die as well. I don’t want it to envelop me to the point where I cannot enjoy life and make ______ that will last not only in this life, but hopefully into the next.

In those ten years watching my mother die, I learned that we cannot ______ avoid grief in this life. But we can seek out and remind ourselves to anticipate the joy, no matter how ______ things are.

We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy.

2 . When my older daughter Hope was five years old, she was looking for a gift to give me for Christmas. Not having any _______ of her own, Hope went to different neighbors and asked if she could do small _______ to make some money. I don’t know how she _______ it, but that Christmas she gave me a gift I will never _______.

Because money was tight, I had not been _______ to subscribe to the newspaper. Reading a newspaper is one of my _______, and I would look for one at doctors’ offices or anywhere else a _______ one might be found.

Hope _______ this as we often read these freebies together. Her gift was wrapped in bright festive paper and taped together with clear tape. _______ enough to be held in my hand, I questioned the ________ of the gift. Hope laughed, “You’ll love it!” Inside were two ________. “It’s for a newspaper,” she said. “We can go and get a ________ one out of the machine!” I held those precious quarters in my hand and knew then that I was a very ________ woman.

That was many years ago. Hope is in college now. When she left for college, I gave her a jar of quarters, a reminder that her love was ________ to me. It was a reminder that love costs nothing, but means ________ to a mother and her daughter.