When faced with a pandemic, people may become more forgiving. For me, this has become a time to_________my estranged（疏远的）father.

When the COVID-19 lockdown started, my thoughts turned to my father I_________know. He'd separated from my mother when I was a baby, and never_________much even after my mother died. Battling a drug addiction, he'd ended up in jail. I admit that my_________was "really ugly" when he tried to contact me in my young adulthood.

Thirteen years on, the arrival of the pandemic made me_________our relationship again. I didn't want another one of my families not to be here. Now he, who has long_________the habit of taking drugs, works as a pizza delivery man in Florida. Knowing that he has to leave his house and_________for a job during the pandemic, I realized that I had to make things_________without any delay. A few days ago, I called him to_________for my no accepting him. Meanwhile, I was scared he would__________me. However, when we got on FaceTime together, his smile was just so__________. We were mirrors of each other smiling at one another. And it was a good__________.

I took our previous father-daughter relation for granted. However, the COVID-19 crisis has led me to reconsider what's the most__________in my life—the security and affection of the family—and made my efforts to__________and reconnect with each other.

When people cut off contact with a family member, it may not be going to be permanent. Unexpectedly, the virus__________that timeline.

Some kind of disaster happened in our home. It had a huge _______ on our lives. It challenged the _______ we relax and even where we sit. There was no fire or flood. We lost our Wi-Fi service, for over a week.

I was raised in the pre-Wi-Fi time, so I was relatively _______ to the situation. My children, however, did not have this training. When given the news that there was no Wi-Fi in the house, their first _______ was: “But, what will we do?” Fortunately, the TV still worked, although the children were _______ to find that it had only 70+ channels.

For the children, a major challenge was homework, most of which is now given online, so the _______ of the Internet meanwhile seemed to provide a(n) _______ version of “the dog ate my homework” excuse. My daughter observed that one of her friends had her water supply temporarily _______ due to a leak (渗漏), but she was convinced that our situation was much _______. “You can still go to the shop and buy water, right?”

My husband and I need the Internet to ________ us to work at home. Luckily, I’ve found out that these days you can go to the shop to buy Wi-Fi. However, buying 1 GB of data makes you view your broadband ________. I don’t want to ________ it like leaving a tap running. We log on to the Wi-Fi network and do what we have to do as ________ as possible and log off.

Therefore, the changes that ________ has created in our daily life have occurred without us really noticing. The ________ part of our time without Wi-Fi was seeing the children make forts (堡垒) out of the sofa cushions, which they haven’t done in years.

Some of the greatest problems we face today have something to do with the gradual destruction (破坏) of our environment through overuse of our ________ . So my family do what we can. We take cloth bags to stores instead of using plastic bags. We walk where we don’t have to ________ .

But when I’m the only one with a cloth bag in ________ at the grocery store, I ask myself: Does it do any good?

I recently found the answer from flamingos (火烈鸟). These beautiful birds gather in ________ groups of a thousand or more. Every year, when the time comes for migration (迁徙) , a few flamingos start the process by   ________ from the lake. But ________ of the others seem to notice, so the tiny group returns.

However, the next day they ________ again. This time a few more struggle along with them, but the vast majority pay no attention, so these pioneers come back.

The trend continues for several more days. Every time a few more birds join in but, ________ the thousands of others still take no notice, the great migration plan is once again ________ .

Then one day, things ________ . The same small group of birds takes wing and a tiny number more join in, just as before. This time their total number is enough to tip the balance (扭转局势). As one, the whole group takes flight and the migration ________ .

A few can make a ________ . It’s true that all of the great problems of the world have been solved because of the   ________ efforts of a few.

If you believe in a cause, don’t ________ . Others will someday notice and ________ we will solve even our greatest problems.