1 . Just before New Year, the principal (校长) called me into his office and asked me to read a poem written by me at the New Year party. “Sure,” I said with a smile, my dreams of being a famous ________ floating in my mind.

For weeks, I worked on my poem, ________ bettering the structure, sound, and voice. I reread my Emily Dickinson and William Wordsworth for ________. I practiced reciting it aloud. I revised, revised, revised. By December 30th, the day of the event, I was ________.

Well, I was confident until I looked around and realized how many people were there. And how big the hall was, and how ________ I felt about myself. How could I ________ a piece of my poetry to 800 people? My heart was beating so hard I thought everyone around me could ________ it. I was nervous. I could feel cool shakes run down my back. I couldn’t remember why I had said yes to the ________. Then the light darkened, the crowd quieted. It was starting.

Suddenly, I was on stage with the bright white lights blinding my view of the audience and the feeling that my ________ was closing up. I leaned in to the microphone and tried out my ________ as I read the title: “Let There Be Light.” My voice boomed (声音低沉洪亮) from the speakers loudly and sounded much more confident than I felt.

The room was ________ as I began my piece, and I tried to focus on the words and ________ the people. The words somehow ________ in the right order, the lines flowed together properly, and I even remembered which words to ________. I finally came to the last line of the poem and breathed a deep sigh of relief. It was over.

The room was dead silent. Maybe no one liked it. I felt like I was going to faint. Then out of the silence there was ________, cheering, and smiling. I had done it. I had shared a piece of my poetry with the world.

2 . Are parents rational (理性的) about their children? No. Parents aren’t rational because ________ isn’t rational. Young people can understand this about romantic love, but they find it ________ to accept this part in parental love.

My eldest daughter’s ________ the other day brought this up. “Let me ask you something, Dad,” she began in patiently controlled ________ that every experienced parent knows.

“I sailed around the Mediterranean in a yacht (游艇) when I was seventeen,” she said. “I hiked through the Pyrenees from Spain to Paris. I’ve done rock climbing and deep-sea diving and slept in rainforests in the jungle of Indonesia. Right?”

“Right,” I said, “So what?”

“So this,” she went on. “When I go to the corner drugstore to pick up some shampoo, why do you always tell me to be ________ when I cross the street?”

There is no satisfactory ________ a parent can give to this.

All I could say in reply was that when I was 50, my mother would ________ me not to drive too fast. If I were 80 and she were still alive, I would be getting the ________ warning. No matter what the age, a child is a child.

There is something else, too, that children find it hard to understand. When they are far away, there is nothing we can do about their ________. They are in the hands of the gods. Parents try not to ________ about it.

But when the children are close, the old protective urge quickly ________, and it doesn’t ________ how far they have been or what experiences they have got through.

Most ________ happen around the corner, not in the rainforest. The most instinctive (本能的) act of almost every creature is to ________ its young, and with humans this reaction stays for a lifetime.

In the parents’ mind, a child ages but does not ________. Rational? No. But if we were rational, would we want children at all?

4 . I woke up with a painful back this moming.This was not______,since my back has given me problems for years,but today no stretching or moving would loosen it up.Still,I had five dogs waiting patiently by the door to go out for their mormning walk as usual,so I slowly bent down and started to pull my______ on.When I did,though,I saw that my shoes,like my body,were showing______ of wear.

From the split in one shoe,I knew that it wouldn’t be too long ______ I had to replace this pair,I only wished I could replace my back along with them.

Later,after walking the dogs,watching the sunrise and eating breakfast,I was feeling a lot ______        inside.My backpain had faded too,and my smile had returned.It was then that I remembered a letter a friend had sent me recently.Inside,she had pasted a ______picture of an old,wom-out pair of work boots,sitting on the ground.Their leather was cracked and their laces were worn,but they still looked ______ ,because inside,someone had planted a beautiful bunch of flowers.The flowers had grown tall and strong, ______their curious container.This picture reminded me again that ______ my body might have felt like a worn-out pair of shoes at times,inside it was a ______that continued to grow every day in love,peace and happiness.

At some point in your life you need to ______ who you really are.Are you the body that ______older every day,or are you the soul within it that remains forever ______ ?One day the loving spirit within you will have to ______out of its worn-out pair of shoes and walk on______them. May it bless everyone it meets along the way,heading for its Heavenly Home.

5 . My work started in 2003 at my local animal shelter’s Adoption Department. It seems like such a long time ago. In the 13 years that have ______, more than 50,000 animals have passed the doors of the ______. Most of them, I do not remember. But ______ there are animals who stand out. Tabby was one such ______.

Tabby was one of the many ______ dogs. What’s more, she was blind and deaf. Tabby’s ______ to be adopted seemed small. But one day a woman ______ Loretta came to the shelter. Her son, Gary, who ______ epilepsy (癫痫) had seen Tabby’s picture ______ the shelter’s website. They were ______ in meeting her! Most boys would want a puppy, a dog who could ______ with him and run through grassy fields on summer days. Tabby would never be able to do that. But as they say, “love is blind.” After meeting her, they decided to ______ Tabby!

If Tabby’s story had simply ended with her ______ adoption, it would still have been something very ______ indeed. But it was ______ happened after her adoption that some might label as “magical”. They became inseparable. They got along well with each other so that Tabby could sense Gary’s seizures(疾病发作)before they ______, giving his family a ______ that one was about to strike. What’s more, Gary seemed to be having fewer and fewer seizures since Tabby’s ______.

How could it be? There are some things that challenge logic and understanding in this world. Sometimes the best that we can do is to accept a ______, which we couldn’t attempt to explain. Because when you try to ______ it, you lose the beauty and miracle of it all.

6 . Pearl Moss looked out her front window in Bethel Park, Pennsyvania. She was instantly _________. A major snowstorm over the weekend had dropped_________ a foot of snow in her driveway, and there was more on the way. She was recovering from shoulder surgery and didn’t have family members nearby who could _________ to dig her out.

A few hours later, there was a _________ on her door. Moss looked out and was surprised to see two teenage boys with shovels (铁铲). David Shelpman and Aidan Campbell _________ in the same neighborhood as Moss and are on the football team at Bethel Park High School. Head Coach Brian DeLallo had emailed his team members on Sunday to _________ them that their Monday’s workout in the school gym wasn’t going to _________. DeLallo also instructed them to find an elderly or disabled neighbor and shovel their driveway. Shelpman and about 40 other team members took their _________ seriously.

Helping elderly and disabled residents to dig out after snowstorms is a Bethel Park _________ that goes back two decades. In Bethel Park, community support of the football team is strong. “Our games are always well __________ so giving back is the right response,” DeLallo said.

Pearl Moss said she’s grateful for the teens adding that if they hadn’t shown up, she probably would have been stuck in her house for a while.

7 . I live on Canada’s west coast and my son lives on its east coast. He has visited his mother and me a number of times and we have visited him there with some ______. We also talk online each week. However, because of Covid-19 travel restrictions and the long ______ between us, we hadn’t seen him ______ for more than two years. His mother is ill so we had talked about a possible future visit with him coming to us but nothing had been decided yet.

Then, one day, there was a knock at the door and when I opened it, in walked my son carrying a pot of flowers. He hadn’t told us he was coming and seeing him was a wonderful ______ and I was in tears.

I think that, as parents we tend to think of our children as being young and being in need of ______ even when they have reached adulthood. ______, though, the ______ appearance of my son and his month-long visit let me see him in a whole new light. My wife needs a lot of ______ these days and our son stepped up to help. There were some repairs and he helped to make them happen. He is a homeowner and is therefore skilled at fixing and ______ the things. He helped to prepare food, to help his mother get ______ when she had to move around, to make some repairs that I had been ______ and, in general, he took from me a(n) ______ I was carrying. I found I was working under his direction because of his outstanding skill. Through it all I could work shoulder to shoulder with this ______, confident man that I loved and admired. It was a wonderful and surprising experience.

My son left recently for his home and again I was in tears but it was ______ somehow. When he arrived I was crying because I was so happy to see him and so ______ to have someone help me take care of his mother. When he left, I shed tears of pride that such a wonderful person is my son and he honors me by calling me “dad”.

8 . Ten years ago I adopted my dog Rudy from a shelter just days before they were going to euthanize(使安乐死)him. We’ve had a special _________ ever since.

As a single woman in my 50s, I’ve found his _________ really meaningful. We do everything together. Every night we have a little bed time snack and then I get in my bed and he gets in his doggy bed right next to mine. But a year ago suddenly Rudy _________. Every night when I got in bed he’d jump up on my bed and start licking(舔)my face. I’d _________ make him get off but the next night he’d _________ the same licking.

I was considering taking him to obedience(驯服)school when it suddenly _________ me that he was licking the same spot on my jaw over and over again. I _________ my jaw and it seemed okay but it was so _________ for my dog that I decided to just trust him.I went to see a(n) _________ to clear my doubt but still felt silly telling her why I came. The doctor agreed to do some __________. It turned out I had a tumor (肿瘤) in my jaw. It couldn’t be felt from the __________ but somehow Rudy knew it was there. Though I’ve go much __________ now, the doctors said if I’d __________ until the tumor was big enough to be felt, it’s likely would have __________ . I saved my dog’s life and now he’s __________ mine!

9 . Earlier that evening, my mother called, telling me that my brother died in a car crash. I stumbled (跌跌撞撞地走) around the house ______ what to put into the suitcases. My husband, Larry, and I had been packing for moving to New Mexico. The house was in (a)total ______.

I tried to hold my tears. I ______ picked things up and put them down. I couldn’t ______. What I’d heard on the phone echoed (回荡) through my head.

Larry phoned a few friends. ______, someone asked to speak to me. “If there is anything I can do, let me know.” “Thank you,” I replied. I didn’t know what to ______.

The doorbell rang and I rose slowly for the door. It was Donna.

“I’ve come to clean your shoes,” she said. ______, I asked her to repeat. “When my father died, it took me ______ to get the shoes cleaned and shined for my father’s ______,” she said. I hadn’t even thought about shoes.

Shoes were gathered. Donna ______ herself on the floor and got to work. The love in the act released my tears. Watching her ______ on one task helped me pull my ______ into order. Laundry first, I told myself. One by one, the jobs ______.

Now whenever I hear of an acquaintance’s loss of a loved one, I think of one ______ task that suits that person’s ______. If the person asks, “How did you know I needed that?” I’d reply, “Because someone did that.”

10 . Woody Davis had always been generous and kind. He never earned much money, but always waved to everybody and _______others.

People in town are _______ for the good deeds he’s done over the last 50 years. Last year, they decided to try and return some of that _______. They started by cutting his firewood for winter. A couple of guys_______ his old and broken truck. Woody’s son, Clint Davis, said he didn’t know how much the community_______ his father until now. He said all the work his dad did for people has been _______ten times and that anyone can’t buy the _______that people have poured out for his dad.

Unfortunately, Woody’s days were _______. About a year ago, Woody contracted ALS(肌萎缩侧索硬化症). When CBS News _______him in January, his health was declining rapidly. He was already ________ to lift and talk, but his spirit was completely ________. Woody told the reporter that he could hardly ________all the help offered by local people. “I feel lucky that I am dying slowly,” Woody said. His words seemed ________.Woody explained that he was glad ________ he got to see how people felt about him and what he ________ meant to them before he died.