My son turned 14 and didn’t have a smartphone. He was the only kid in his class without one. When he asked for a phone, I _________.

“You can choose to do things _________ when you grow up and become a parent,” I replied. But sometimes, I wondered if I was being too stubborn (固执的) or unfair.

The more I research, the more confident I feel in my _________. Many studies _________ the current mental health crisis among teenagers to changes in how they socialize, namely, the change from in-person to online _________.

But other parents _________ my view, saying “He must feel so left out!” Then there are the parents who tell me with _________ that they regretted not delaying their teenager’s phone ownership longer than they did. They _________ my decision.

If teenagers are truly spending about 5 hours on average per day on their devices, as a recent research states, then what are they not doing? Kids _________ in their devices are missing out on real life, which strikes me a lot.

I want my son to have a __________ childhood, one full of adventures, imaginative play and physical challenges. The simplest way to achieve these __________ is to delay giving him a smartphone.

Some think my son is missing out or falling behind, but he is not. He does well in school, __________ with friends, and moves independently around our town. He claimed he would give his own 14-year-old boy a phone someday, and I told him that’s __________. But recently, he admitted he __________ the beautiful scenery on a drive to a mountain because he had been so absorbed in his iPad.

If that is his __________ of admitting I’m right, I’ll take it.

I devote myself to music because of my grandmother. My mum and I lived with my grandparents from the time I was two until I was eight. And even then, I was at their house before and after school every day while my mother was _______. 

Grandma loved music. It was she that first _______ me to Elvis Presley as a very young child, and once I heard his music, I was truly in_______with it. Most five-year-olds ask for toys for birthdays, but I wanted Elvis’ albums. I would play them non-stop and _______ to the music in my grandma’s family room though my movements didn’t look_______. 

Grandma played the piano and _______ me to sing “America the Beautiful” and “Somewhere over the Rainbow”. I finally started playing music on the piano, and soon grandma was paying for me to take piano lessons from a lady living in the _______. I would come home from_______ and walk there for my lesson. I _______ took about nine months of lessons, but it was enough to give me a foundation and allow me to continue to teach myself. 

Last month when I came home to visit grandma in the hospital, I brought along my guitar with me. She was in great pain, but the music seemed to__________ her soul. She had me sing some songs and when I started to sing “Somewhere over the Rainbow”, her weakened voice__________ in with mine for a few lines. That experience was one of the most __________ of my lifetime and one I will certainly cherish forever. I told her of my music career and she was very __________ and said, “That’s wonderful!” I __________ to play for her throughout the week I was home. 

My grandma passed away two days ago. In my opinion, part of her will live on through every __________ I write or sing for her in my life.

“I have a letter for you,” my friend Kirsten told me on the phone. “I think it’s from your mother.” I was ______, since my mother had been ______ for seven years.

A few weeks later Kirsten handed me the ______ dated Aug. 30, 2002. Aground then I was preparing for my pilot course’s final exam at the ______ school. The students finished the training on ______ days.

I was the first to ______. My mother’s letter ______ after I left. Kirsten picked it up from my mail-box, to keep ______ she next saw me.______, a few days later, when it was her turn to leave, she ______ the letter among the piles of papers she ______ packed into boxes. It ______ there for a decade, during which my mother died. In 2013, when Kirsten ______ some dusty belongings from her flying school days, she ______ the letter.

It’s been two years since Kirsten gave me the letter which I’ve carried on my long flights. But I haven’t ______ it yet. When I told some friends this, they ______ their heads. They said they wouldn’t have been able to wait a second. Of course, I ______ -How could I not? -about her ______ in the envelope. Surely, I think, she had written to wish me luck, ask about my life and tell me the news from ______ to make me at case. However, for now it’s ______ to look at her handwriting on the envelope, and to remember that until I open it, I know I’ll hear from her once more.