I still remember what I felt on a bright Saturday morning in late September, at a five-kilometer race in Clarkston, Georgia.

It was an unusual morning. About an hour earlier, when we drove into town to participate in the race, my 11-year-old son noticed a green tree cricket（蟋蟀） on my car. It was friendly, no longer than a fingernail. It jumped onto my son’s finger, and walked across my shirt, and then went back to my son’s hand, where it stayed so long that we eventually gave it a name: Little Friend.

The walk from the car to the registration table was perhaps a quarter of a mile. Little Friend stayed with my son. Then, we walked back across the railroad tracks and waited for the race to start. A few minutes before the race, Little Friend either fell or jumped off my son’s hand and landed on the sidewalk. Maybe it wanted to go free. But this was not a good place for that. Pedestrian（行人） traffic was heavy, so Little Friend was in danger. My son knelt and reached out his hand. It came back.

The race was about to start, and the tiny green insect was in for a wild ride. My son would run fast, and the race would be long. The race began. I ran well enough, and felt excited at the finish line. But that thrill gave way to anxiety when my son didn’t show up.

I knew he could run 5 kilometers in about 30 minutes. When I didn’t see him at the 35-minute mark, I began to wonder what had gone wrong. And as the 40-minute mark approached and he still didn’t appear, I went out looking for him. Had he got lost? I crossed the railroad tracks and looked down a long straightaway, hoping to see his face. Finally, there he was, just ahead of the 45-minute mark.

Little Friend was riding proudly on one finger of my son’s right hand.

Smiling, we walked back to the car with Little Friend.

3 . If you’re looking for inspiration to get healthy and stay active, look no further than Edna Giordano.

Edna, who lives in Canada, has become famous for the fitness level she maintains at age 91. The mom of five, grandmother of twenty-one and great-grandmother of four still drives now. “I’ve always had a busy lifestyle because, let’s face it, with that many children, you have to be busy,” Edna said. “So, I never really thought about it. That’s just the way I live.” She said she only really began to focus on her fitness in her 60s, when she was forced to retire from her job at a local hospital. She had to face the fact that she was 60.

To keep herself busy, Edna began gardening again that she had to abandon due to her busy work. She said she also started going to the gym in her 60s, which she still does every other day. “I have to keep my feet to the fire because it’s cold in the morning in winter, and when it’s snowy or icy out there, I don’t really get enthusiastic about going outside,” she said. “But I make myself do it and mark it on the calendar. So I cannot take any shortcuts.”

Edna said she focused on walking at the gym for her cardiovascular (心血管) health and also included lots of weight lifting in her routine to maintain her bone strength. “When in the gym, I don’t try to break any records or compete with anyone else,” Edna said. “I only push myself to do better all the time, and I only compete with myself.”

When it came to her age, Edna said the people at the gym didn’t realize she’s 91. She prefers it that way, because when people do realize she’s in her 90s, they’ll surely demand to help her. “I know them well. But I don’t really want help,” said Edna. “It’s funny to say that, but I like to be independent.”

4 . I was sitting at my desk when my phone buzzed. It was a _______ from Angus Menzies, my best friend since childhood. We had planned to go canoeing (独木舟). Whenever we'd hang out, we would hold some sort of adventure, maybe to prove that we hadn't yet become old men _______ of handling difficulties.

Then came the day when Angus and I _______ at a steady pace on the massive river which had reached a record high of around 200 feet. It started smoothly but all of a sudden, we heard a deep rumbling (轰鸣声). It was the sound of the rapids. I trembled with _______ , but we _______ . The river curved ahead. We _______ over a 3-foot wave and came down with a strike as a bigger one sped towards us. We hit it high and at an angle. As the canoe tipped over, I leaped clear, hitting the cold rushing water. I _______ surfaced, trying to get my direction. The canoe, upside down, _______ across the rushing current to my right. Angus couldn't reach it and ended up behind me. The current was impossible to _______ . Later, I heard Angus's voice, "Hold on to the canoe." I grabbed it, put my cheek to the canoe's ________ belly and the current moved us steadily along.

By pure ________ , a few minutes later, a small boat came into ________ . We whistled and the boat, ________ by a father and his two sons, came over and dragged us up. The boys stared at us as we sat on the deck, soaked and ________ . As we pulled up to a shore, we saw a line of firefighters. They wrapped an emergency ________ around Angus and me. We were rescued from our crisis.

5 . Just over two years ago, at the age of 54, mv life changed tracks. Up until that point I had my parents and a family. I knew who I was. Then my mother, Diane, after a huge stroke (中风), decided to get something off her chest. And it turned out that my late father Richard, who had died in 2014, wasn’t actually my father.

At first there was sadness, then confusion and anger. One question was running around my head — who am I? Obviously I asked my mother tons of questions but she wouldn’t give me any details. Just a name, a time and a place: John Pritchard, 1966, Brighton. I asked if John knew about me. No, she never told him. Wow! Not only had I been robbed of a father, he’d also been robbed of a son.

I was chasing around like a madman, exploring all sorts of ancestry (世系) websites. Then a friend of mine suggested I get an unlocked DNA test and see what happens. So I did and a few weeks later, I got the results — a 100 percent parent DNA match. The next thing I did before I knew it was to sit in front of the computer, trying to send my dad an email.

But to be honest, all I did was sit there staring at the screen, typing and deleting. How do you write the most important email of your life? I put it gently and slowly, revealing what I’d found out. Luckily, John considerately replied, which was a huge relief, and we agreed to meet up.

So there I am, a man in his fifties, with a recently broken history, on a train to London to meet my real father. We had a long hug but there were no tears it was as if all the emotion was too big to grasp. We said hello, had a beer and talked about ordinary stuff, like we’d known each other for years. We’d both been firemen, and we were into motorbikes. What struck me was how easy it was to talk to him. We quickly fell into a pattern of texting each other, then ringing a couple of times a week. And now we are planning to go on a holiday in France together.

Through no fault of our own we lost each other a long time ago and that’s where the story could have ended. But fate has given us a second chance. So my advice for you? Don’t waste your time regretting the loss of the past — live in the present.

6 . Seven years after a terrible fall left me paralyzed, here I was, with my two teammates, on the way to becoming the first all-disabled team to cross Europe's largest ice cap, the Vatnajökull glacier, unsupported and unassisted.

A year before, when McCann first suggested making the 100-mile trip, I was excited by the _______ of reaching this lost world of mountains and ice, yet _______ about whether I’d struggle. But I was eager for

From our start point, we would need to _______ through storm-force winds and overcome the _______ of our injuries. This was going to be the toughest challenge of my life. Roped together, we started toward the frozen horizon, _______ two sledges (雪橇) loaded with equipment behind us. Just 10 minutes into our journey, I was already beginning to feel the _______ on my shoulders and arms. The weight of our equipment was a constant _______ as it dragged stubbornly through the snow behind us. And yet, with each drive of my poles into the snow, I pushed myself further from civilization — and _______ to the man I'd once been.

After 11 tough days, and countless ________ and slips, we approached the eastern edge of the Vatnajökull glacier. We had beaten the odds, ________ our physical limitations and emerged victorious.

That moment at the ________ affected every aspect of my life and the way I ________ my disability. No longer did I consider myself ________ , because, if I could reach the summit of a remote ice cap, I could overcome the frustrations and setbacks of day-to-day life with flexibility and ________ .

10 . David, my cyber friend, now 25, is still searching for something to do with his life. His father, who has ________ their lives, wants to take him into his successful business. After a lifetime of ________ and want, David’s father holds out to him a small sign of hope for a ________ future. “He seems to be sincere in his ________ to make things right with us,” David says. “To have a job, to have a father — it is ________.”

But perhaps not to David’s ________. He hasn’t said much about how she feels about the ________ re-appearance of her ex-husband. But it’s pretty clear that she’s at least ________, if not made extremely angry. David feels that he has to make a ________ between loyalty to his mother, who has been there for him all his life, and forgiveness for his father, who may ________ his hope for the future.

“I ask you for advice,” he writes to me. “I do not wish to ________ my mother, especially not after all she has done for me. But my religion teaches me to ________ all men — including my father.”

Loyalty or forgiveness — which is the greater value?

It seems to me that life’s most ________ choices are not between right and wrong. ________, those choices are pretty easy to make. But choosing between cherished virtues puts our souls on ________.