I had to leave school at a young age because of my poor family. I decided to go back to college to ______ my dream at 42. Could I balance the ______ as a student, mom and wife? I managed to ______ enough money for my first semester though our budget was ______. But I had no idea how I would pay for anything beyond that. With a step of faith, I ______.

Studying with kids half my age, I had to ______ myself to learn new things. After the initial first weeks passed, however, a balance was ______ between my studying and living.

How to make ends meet at home was still my ______. But one day, a professor mentioned that grant money (助学金) was ______ to students like me. So I began the application process. ______, I received a call from my professor telling me that I was selected weeks later. I’d have to ______ some volunteer hours as required by the grant program, but the remainder of my college expenses would be ______. I hung up the phone with teary eyes. I couldn’t believe my dream was becoming a ______.

For another two years. I continued taking summer sessions. For the next eighteen years, I taught in a primary school. I told students my ______ of how I achieved my dream all my life.

If you’re working on something that you really care about, you don’t have to be ______. The dream pulls you.

Charles Plumb, a Naval Academy graduate, was a jet pilot. In a fight, his plane was _______ by a surface-to-air missile（导弹）. He was _______ and spent 6 years in a prison. He _______ in prison and now lectures on lessons learned from that _______.

One day, when Plumb and his wife were _______ in a restaurant, a man at another table came up and said, “You’re Plumb! You flew jet fighters from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were _______!”

“How in the world did you know that?” asked Plumb.

“I _______ your parachute（ 降落伞）,” the man replied.

Plumb gasped in _______ and at the same time was really _______. The man grabbed his handand said, “I ________it worked!”

Plumb assured him, “It sure did. If your parachute hadn’t worked, I wouldn’t be________ today.” They all laughed.

Plumb couldn’t ________ that night, thinking about that man. Plumb was ________ about what the man might have looked like in a Navy uniform. He wondered how many times he might have ________ him and not even said good morning, how are you or anything, ________you see, he was a fighter pilot and the man was________ a sailor. Plumb thought of the many hours that sailor had spent in the bowels（内部）of the ship, ________ weaving the shrouds（罩）and folding the silks of each parachute, holding in his hands each time the ________ of someone he did not know.

Now Plumb asks his ________，“Who is packing your parachute?” Everyone has someone who provides what they need to make it through the day.

Plumb also points out that he needed many kinds of parachutes when his plane was shot down. As you go through your week, month, and even New Year，________ the people who have packed your parachute and enabled you to get where you are today!

Several years ago, I had to count every single penny I spent and keep a calculator (计算器) in my head while________. I would stand in the shop and add things up over and over. At that time, I _______shopped at Trader Joe’s because they had a great deal of less________food. And at the same time, I had a little sick kid, which made my life even________. I often stood in the walkway adding everything up.

Once, it was too________and I couldn’t buy everything. I didn’t want my card turned down. I________everything, trying to figure out what to put back. I kept everything everyone else________, but put back the one thing I liked. It was a________frozen package of chicken tamales that can be seen in any shop. But that package was what made the     _____over budget (预算).

I hated the feeling of not being able to________that $3.29 package of tamales. But that was life and I must move on and_________about it. It was what I had to do.

That night our doorbell________. It was strange because it was________cold and late. I went to the door, opened it and then________that on my front steps were bags of________. On the top of the first bag, I saw the chicken tamales, the________kind I had put back.

I cannot________the feeling, one of realizing that________in my aloneness I wasn’t alone. It was the feeling that I mattered and the feeling of________. I still have no idea who put all of that food on my doorstep. My kids were were so________about all the foods. At that moment I knew I was not alone.