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 . 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.

4 . 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.

6 . In the mid-1950s, I was a somewhat bored early-adolescent male student who believed that doing any more than necessary was wasted effort. One day, this approach threw me into embarrassment.

In Mrs. Totten’s eighth-grade math class at Central Avenue School in Anderson, Indiana, we were learning to add and subtract decimals (小数).

Our teacher typically assigned daily homework, which would be recited in class the following day. On most days, our grades were based on our oral answer to homework questions.

Mrs. Totten usually walked up and down the rows of desks requesting answers from student after student in the order the questions had appeared on our homework sheets. She would start either at the front or the back of the classroom and work toward the other end.

Since I was seated near the middle of about 35 students, it was easy to figure out which questions I might have to answer. This particular time, I had completed my usual two or three problems according to my calculations.

What I failed to expect was that several students were absent, which threw off my estimate. As Mrs. Totten made her way from the beginning of the class, I desperately tried to determine which math problem I would get. I tried to work it out before she got to me, but I had brain freeze and couldn’t function.

When Mrs. Totten reached my desk, she asked what answer I’d got for problem No. 14. “I…I didn’t get anything,” I answered, and my face felt warm.

“Correct,” she said.

It turned out that the correct answer was zero.

What did I learn that day? First, always do all your homework. Second, in real life it isn’t always what you say but how you say it that matters. Third, I would never make it as a mathematician.

If I could choose one school day that taught me the most, it would be that one.

7 . The family of a 6-year-old adopted Chinese girl who badly needs a bone marrow transplant (骨髓移植) believes they have found a match in China.

Kailee Wells suffers from a serious aplastic anemia (再生障碍性贫血), which prevents bone marrow from producing new blood cells. She has taken courses of treatment but has shown little sign of recovery.

The best help for such patients is a transplant of healthy marrow or blood cells from a suitable donor. Certain tissue of the patient and the donor must match.

Kailee’s mother, Linda Wells, made her second trip to China earlier this month to find a donor. Her husband, Owen Wells, said that his wife believed doctors there had found a match.

“For these last 22 months, we’ve been living in fear that Kailee would take a turn for the worse and there would be nothing we could do about it,” he said. “Now we have something we can use and save our little girl. We are just about ready to start jumping up and down and rejoicing.”

Wells said a Chinese girl who is about a year old has a blood sample that matches Kailee’s perfectly. The next step, he said, would be to make sure the sample is safely harvested and protected for transplant, the details of which have yet to be worked out.

Linda Wells first traveled to China in February to try to locate the girl’s birth mother, who is likely to be a match. But she found no relatives and decided to try again this month.

“This gives us so much encouragement because now we found what we thought we would never be able to find for Kailee,” Owen Wells said. “We’re going to continue our blood donor drive to try to continue to help as many people as we possibly can. We’re just so happy.”