A Blessing From A Homeless Person

On the way back from work every evening, more often than not, there would be a homeless man standing at the exit of the freeway. He seemed to be in his late 40s, but was probably a little younger. Although wearing ill-fitting clothes and a mismatched pair of shoes, he seemed neither scruffy nor gloomy. With a huge grin highlighting his face, he always waved at every car and sometimes almost danced, which made the thick moustache appear “stylish” and even adorable.

Every day after work I would remember to gather any spare change, and put it aside to give him if I saw him. A feeling of joy would come over me every time I caught sight of him while coming down the ramp. He did have that effect. I’d quickly roll down my window and give him the coins. Occasionally the red light would be on for a minute and we would ask each other about our day. His answer would always be the same— “I’m blessed!” I knew what his answer was going to be every time, yet I would still ask just as if his words could work their magic on me. It amazed me that even in his situation of being homeless he was so positive, and his answer would always remind me how blessed I was: a single mother of four amazing kids, with a place to call home and a job to provide for my family.

One day I was called into my boss’s office and informed that I was being laid off due to the depressing economy. This came as a nasty shock for a single mother whose big family survived on this salary. A feeling of helplessness and grief engulfed me, then followed by endless worry. For the rest of that day, all I could think of was “How am I going to provide for my kids? How am I going to pay rent? And what am I going to do?”

Needless to say, I was very sad and upset on my way home that day.

You see that day he gave me more than a dollar bill; he taught me a valuable lesson.

2 . From my second grade on, there was one event I feared every year: the piano recital(独奏会). A recital _________I had to practice a boring piece of music and perform before strangers. Each year I would ask my father if I could skip the recital “just this once”. And each year he’d shake his head, saying something about building self-confidence and working toward a(n)_________So it was with really great_________that I stood in church one recent Sunday, video camera in hand, and watching my 68-year-old father sweating in his shirt before_________to play the piano in his very first recital

My father has had a(n)_________to play music since childhood, but his family was poor and couldn’t afford lessons. He could have gone on regretting it, as too many of us do. But though he was rooted in his past, he wasn’t _________there. When he retired three years ago, he_________his church music director to take him as a student.

For a moment after my father sat down at the keyboard, he simply stared down at his fingers. Has he forgotten the_________? I worried, remembering those split seconds _________ago when my mind   would go blank (空白的) and my fingers would__________ .But then came the beautiful melody(旋律), from the__________fingers that once baited(装饵于)my fishing lines. And I__________ he had been doing what music teachers always stress:__________the music and pretend the others aren’t there.

“I’m__________of him for starting something new at his age,” I said to my son Jeff. “Yeah, and doing it so __________,” Jeff added.

With his first recital, my father taught me more about courage and determination than all the words he used those 30-plus years ago.

3 . My wife and I moved into our home two years ago. We had a yard with a lot of ________. Very often when we have flowers, Denise or I would plant some between the rocks, just to add some ________ to the area.

Last summer, I found a tiny little plant in the yard that I could not immediately identify. I knew I didn’t plant it and Denise said she didn’t either.

We decided to let it ________ growing until we could find out what it was.

Weeks passed and as I made my way back to the ________ plant, it appeared to be a sunflower. I decided to ________ the weeds (杂草) around it. As I pulled rocks from the area to get to the weeds, I noticed something ________.The sunflower had not ________ where I saw it begin. It actually had begun under a big rock and grown under and around it to reach the ________.

That’s when I ________ that if a tiny little sunflower didn’t let a big rock stand in its way of developing, we too have the ability of doing the same thing. If we ________ ourselves like that little sunflower, we can reach where we ________ to go and get what we need for growth.

We need to believe in ourselves knowing we have the ________ to achieve our goals. Like the sunflower, it knew it had the ability to get over the rocks because it had ________ in itself that it would succeed. Stand tall like the sunflower and be ________ of who and what we are, and then the environment will begin to ________ us. We will find a way to go under or around any “rocks” in order to reach our goals.

I am a proud mother of three children. My last little baby was born in the middle of August and her name is Aida.

Shortly after having Aida, my mother-in-law Ann showed me something she learned from her friend’s mother in an art class she attended weekly. She had a loom (织布机) and showed me how to knit (编织) a scarf. After, I learned some skills, she gave me a small loom with her half done project.

I realized the homeless population in my town really needed some more warm clothes. I started to give away my hats to the people asking for food outside the food shop down the street I live in.

My oldest son Siddhartha got involved in the project and made a hat as well. I found that there was a non-profit organization on the way home, which made masks for farm workers and was asking for winter warm clothing donations. I made a lot of woolen hats and gave them to the organization which would hand them out to farm workers.

Then I, together with my son, made woolen hats for everyone in my family as Christmas gifts, and gave woolen hats to all my neighbors I was close to, There was a new family that moved in down the street. I did not know them very well but why not break the ice with some handmade gifts? So I made hats for the mom and one-year-old baby. I knocked on the door and handed the gifts over and my neighbor was so happy to receive them. We talked happily and I learned she worked in a hospital.

The new neighbor had limited knitting skills so she asked me to create sweaters for kids in hospital together.

Later, my new neighbor wanted to learn my knitting skills to serve the elderly in the nursing home.

6 . Emma Jones’ three-year-old son, Eric, was sharing a hot dog on the deck overlooking her friend Sarah Roth’s swimming pool. One moment Jones was watching Eric play around with the other children at this _________ of moms and kids last July. The next moment he disappeared without a _________. She turned to her friend Machel Rawlings and asked, “Have you seen Eric?”

Rawlings stood, _________ the pool and suddenly screamed. Eric was found _________ face down in the deep end. What happened next was a _________ textbook response: As Rawlings dived in the pool, grasped the boy, _________ him over and swam him to the end. Meanwhile, their host, Sarah Roth, dialed 911. At the pool’s _________, Rawlings handed Eric up to his mother. His skin was blue and wasn’t breathing.

Rawlings who’d taken a CPR course just four months earlier, immediately began rescue breathing. Hanging up the phone, Roth, a former flight attendant who’d accumulated _________ experience before, _________ CPR from Rawlings. Three long minutes went by with Roth breathing into Eric’s mouth and __________ chest compressions (按压) while Rawlings and Jones __________ his condition. Gradually his color __________, and as the ambulance was arriving on the __________, Rawlings looked at Roth. “He’s breathing,” she said.

The __________ with which the women acted saved Eric’s life. Emma Jones found any words seemed powerless. She said __________, “They did everything right.”

7 . Many years ago, my dad was diagnosed with a terminal illness.He was unable to work at _________ job. He would be fine for quite a while, but would then fall suddenly_________ and have to be admitted to the hospital.

He wanted to do something to keep himself _________, so he decided to volunteer at the local children hospital. My dad loved kids. He would talk to them and play with them. Sometimes, he would _________ one of his kids. In certain instances, he would give comfort to the sad parents of these children.

One of his kids was a girl who had been admitted with a_________ disease that paralyzed (使……瘫痪) her from the neck down. I don’t know the _________ of the disease, but I do know that it was very sad for a little girl. My dad decided to try to help her. He started _________ her in her room, bringing paints, brushes and paper. He stood the paper up _________ a backing, put the paintbrush in his mouth and began to paint. He didn’t use his hands at all. Only his head would move. He would visit her _________ he could and paint for her. All the while he would tell her, ―see, you can do __________ you set your mind to.

Eventually, she began to paint using her mouth, and she and my dad became friends. Soon after, the little girl was discharged (允许出院). My dad also __________ the children hospital for a little while because he became ill. Sometime later after my dad had recovered and __________ to work, he was at the volunteer counter one day and __________ the front door open. In came the little girl who had been paralyzed, but this time she was walking.She ran straight to my dad and hugged him really tight. She gave my dad a picture she had done using her __________. At the bottom it read, －thank you for helping me walk.

Sometimes love is more__________ than doctors, and my dad who died just a few months after the little girl gave him the pictureloved every single child in that hospital.

9 . It was in the eighth grade at the time that we were having a final test. During the test, the girl sitting next to me ________ something, but I didn't understand. So I ________ her way and found out that she was trying to ask me if I had a/an ________ pen. She showed me that hers was out of ________ and would not write. I happened to have one, so I took it out of my pencil box and put it on her desk.

Later, after the test papers had been ________ the teacher asked me to stay in the room when all the other students were ________ As soon as we were alone she began to talk to me about what it meant to ________; she talked about how important it was to stand on your own two feet and be________ for your own acts. For a long time, she talked about honesty and ________ the fact that when people do something dishonest, they are really ________ themselves. She made me promise that I would think ________ about all the things she had said. I walked out of the room wondering why she had________ to talk to me about all those things.

Later on, I found out that she thought I had cheated on the test. I tried to explain about the pen, but all ________ she could say was it seemed very strange to her that I hadn't talked of anything about the pen the day she talked to me________ after the test. Even if I tried to explain that I was just doing the girl ________by letting her use my pen, I am sure she continued to believe that I had cheated on the test.