It was the only time in four decades of nursing that I'd had such a terrible problem with a colleague-Rita. She_________to look down on me and I had no idea why. Every kindness I showed produced an unexpected _________ . Our relationship was so impossibly bad.

Now it was eight years later and I retired from _________   , and was certainly tired from ever thinking about that troublesome   _________   . The flu had hit us and my town had sold out of protective _________.I searched for a box of hospital-grade masks I had _________   ; I just knew those masks were in the box by my desk. However, I didn't find the masks, but I found some old, _________ mail-a Christmas card a year ago. That kind of thing is always a treat to _________, but the return address said Florida and I couldn't figure out who I knew there.

I opened the envelope and read the card in astonishment-it was from Rita.“Please _________ me for being such a person,”she wrote. A wave of __________ and forgiveness washed over me. I'm not really a__________ because of a problem with my hands, but there at 11:30 p. m. , I typed out an emotional, of-the-moment message ensuring her that there was no cause for__________，no need for forgiveness because there is only love and gratitude for the __________.

In a matter of seconds,I received a text __________ Honestly speaking,Rita was absolutely __________We became friends again.

When I was 13 my only purpose was to become the star on our football team. That meant_______Miller King, who was the best _________at our school.

Football season started in September and all summer long I worked out. I carried my football everywhere for _________.

Just before September, Miller was struck by a car and lost his right arm. I went to see him after he came back from _________ He looked very_______, but he didn’t cry.

That season, I _______all of   Miller’s records while he _______ the home games   from the bench. We went 10-1 and I was named most valuable player, _______I often had crazy dreams in which it was I who caused Miller’s _________.

One afternoon, I was ________ the field to go home and saw Miller stuck(困住) going over a fence—which wasn’t ________ to climb if you had both arms. I’m sure I was the last person in the world he wanted to ________ help from. But even that challenge he accepted. I   ________him move slowly over the fence. When we were finally__________ on the other side, he said to me, “You know, I didn’t tell you this during the season, but you did________ .Thank you for filling in for ________ .”

His words freed me from my bad __________ . I thought to myself, how even without an arm he was more of a leader. Damaged but not defeated, he was__________ahead of me. I was right to have __________ him. From that day on，I grew   ________     and a little more real.

It wasn’t that I was embarrassed my husband was out of work. It’s just that we were private people and didn’t share our _________ much with others. So when he lost his job, we just acted like nothing had changed and no one seemed to _________.

It didn’t take long before my friends found out that my husband _________ a lot more. When asked about it, I told my good friend and neighbour Tammy the _________ and I said we were still looking. She then told me that her husband had also been hunting for jobs all over town because his company was closing down. I was _________. We constantly did things together, yet I hadn’t found any sign of their_________.

After knowing what they were _________, I wanted to help them even though we didn’t have much ourselves. So, I became a professional shopper. I looked for discount offers everywhere, and when I finished my _________, I would offer to buy things for Tammy at the_________ price. It seems like our money goes even further because we are willing to share.

It goes the other way too. Tammy and her husband have given us enough wood to __________ our house this winter. It has been a huge __________, reducing our gas bill to almost nothing. There are other example of helping each other. I teach Tammy how to make bread; she __________ my kids when I go to job interviews... and the __________ goes on.

I don’t have much to give, but I can give of myself. I can have __________, love and hope, and the more I give these away, the more I __________.