The Gift of Life

In August 1998, a big fire broke out in an apartment building in Chicago. Jacob, together with other firefighters, rushed to the scene to fight the fire. “It was already looking pretty hopeless when we got there,” said Jacob. Suddenly, a young woman came running up to them yelling at the top of her lungs, “My Kris is still on the fifth floor.”

Immediately, Jacob made his way up to the fifth floor. The fire had grown so fierce by then. “As a fireman I knew the chances of my surviving if I went there were slim,” said Jacob. “But I just kept seeing that mother’s face in my head.” So Jacob rushed up and finally found the boy lying on the floor in just about the only spot that wasn’t on fire. “I didn’t even have time to figure out if he was alive or dead,” said Jacob. “I just grabbed him and rushed out.”

Two weeks after the rescue, Jacob had two visitors—the young woman and her son Kris. “Thank you,” she said. “We are forever in your debt.” They have kept in touch with each other since then.

Jacob was a hero, but little did he know how his unselfish decision on that day would affect his own life some 20 years later.

At age 43, Jacob was suffering from kidney (肾) failure, and his doctor said there would be little chance of survival without a new kidney. “I really didn’t know where to turn. That’s when Kris came to my door,” said Jacob.

2 . While at the National Broadcasters Convention (大会) recently, one of the speakers, Sam Haskell, told a story that was such a beautiful example of ________.

When Sam was nine, a ________ commercial attracted his attention. Procter & Gamble (宝洁公司) had launched an ad campaign with “the Cheer Man,” a character who ________ neighborhoods around the country. If he rang your doorbell, you’d ________ ten dollars.

Young Sam was ________ the Cheer Man would come to his home in Armory, Mississippi. He told everyone he talked to that the Cheer Man was coming to his house. People ________ him, but his mom kept encouraging him to dream.

Time went by and the ad was no longer on television, but Sam ________ believed the Cheer Man was coming. Then one day, Sam saw a car ________ with a loudspeaker on the roof — and a man was yelling, “Cheer! Cheer!” Just as he’d ________, the Cheer Man stopped in front of his house, walked up to Sam, and said, “You get the ten dollars.”

Sam’s mom had a huge smile on her face. His dad — who’d made fun of him for his dream — stood there in ________. “Out of all the tiny towns in Mississippi, how did you end up coming here?” he asked. In fact, their address was randomly ________ by computer.

Young Sam learned a valuable lesson that day about ________ a dream. He discovered that anything is ________. That knowledge paved the way for Sam Haskell’s ________ as a famous television producer in Hollywood.

And it all ________ with the Cheer Man and a mother who encouraged his dreams.

3 . It was raining heavily when the street lights went off and I was returning home. Suddenly I saw a white light coming slowly towards me, as if it were _________, and then it disappeared. I thought it to be a trick and _________ on my way back home.

Just two blocks away, to my _________, I again saw those lights in the distance. They were rising up at a _________ speed. It seemed as if they were very desperate to get to the hill. Then suddenly a _________ appeared in the cloudy night sky and everything was dark again. I went home, not _________ myself much about it, and went to bed as usual. But the next day, I saw there was a huge crowd _________ on the street. When I asked a person in the crowd, he said that something _________ the trees on the hill. Then it _________ me what I saw yesterday night. When I looked up to have a glance of what had happened, I __________ that the trees were burnt all the way through which the lights moved last night.

The research team arrived soon and started to take samples and __________ if people had seen something unusual last night. I gave them a (n) __________ of all that I had seen. After recording everything, they said that they would soon __________ what caused this incident, but their efforts were in __________.

Eventually, ten years passing by, the forest has restored itself. __________, no one till today has been able to detect the cause.

Paula is a 55-year-old woman living in New Jersey. She lives a happy life without concern for financial or social problems and she constantly shares laughs with her family and friends. About ten years ago, her husband Michael gave her a gold ring with a diamond in it on their 20^th wedding anniversary. She cherished it very much and wore it every day.

Having been married for almost 30 years, Paula had everything set for herself, and knew that her life in New Jersey was a thrilling one. One day, Paula was in the bathroom cleaning everything up, from the sink to the floor. She wanted to keep her house clean and beautiful. As soon as Paula finished washing the bathtub, she moved on to the part she feared most: the toilet. Wanting to get it out of the way, she quickly cleaned the inside of the toilet with a brush, and flushed (冲走) the soap away. After finishing, she felt there was something wrong, but she couldn’t think of what it was.

Paula’s heart skipped a beat when she noticed that her left ring finger felt a bit lighter. She slowly looked down at her ring finger, hoping that her treasured anniversary gift was still on it. She was frightened to see that it was lost. She didn’t notice that she flushed it down the toilet.

Paula said, “I must have flushed it down. It had been a little big on my finger, because it was winter time and my hands were smaller. I felt so bad about it. Sad and embarrassed.”

She couldn’t believe that she just let thousands of dollars go down the drain (下水道)，literally. She searched the bathroom and even the house, hoping that she just dropped it somewhere and forgot about it. She even took apart the toilet and searched the inside pipes with a flashlight, but in vain. Paula had no idea how to explain this to her husband. To buy the ring, Michael worked extra hard before the anniversary, so to tell him the bad news was unimaginable for Paula.