From ages 13 to 21, I attended church summer camp in Scotland every year. During the last several summers I_______as a volunteer staff member, which meant that tuition (学费) was___________.

Airfare, however, was not.

When I was younger, my parents _________ paid for my travel. One year, though, they___________ my privilege (特殊待遇) and said, “If you want to go to Scotland, you’ll need to pay your own way. ”

I was a student, and I had just _________ two months to earn about $900. It felt ___________ . But I had a very clear ___________ that I was meant to be in Scotland that year. So I___________ applying for jobs. I searched high and low. I sent out ___________and made calls. Nothing.

Just when I was starting to lose______________, my brother Willie’s behavioral aide (助理) came for her weekly home visit. When I____________ her, she said, “I know you’re looking for a job. There’s a preschool ____________ for kids on the autism spectrum (自闭症谱系), and they need______________. It’s only from now through mid-July, and the pay is pretty good. I can ____________ you, if you want. ” “Yes! Thank you so much! That sounds______________,” I said.

And it was. It gave me a(n) ____________of the work I’d do later on as a caregiver for adults with special needs at L’Arche. It __________ just before I needed to leave for Scotland, and it____________me to earn exactly enough money for round-trip airfare to Scotland.

That summer, there was no money left over. Yet I felt __________ every single day. Because I was grateful and I had just enough to be where I was __________ to be.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed everyone's daily life. While our experiences were ________, there's one thing many of us had in common: quarantine (隔离期) hair.

Salons (美发厅) were closed for months, but our ________ didn't stop growing. So my 12-year-old daughter, who needed a haircut even before the quarantine, ________ to do something good with her hair. She planned to donate (捐赠) it.

We had ________ donating her hair before, so she ________ that it needed to be a certain length. “Maybe someday,” she said.

And I wasn't surprised when she said she was ________ with her hair having grown ________ enough to both meet the donation requirement and leave her with a shoulder-length haircut during the quarantine.

When the salon finally ________ again, my daughter sat ________ in the chair and talked to the hairdresser. She mentioned how great it was that she could ________ someone else just by cutting her hair. Listening to their conversation, I wondered when my daughter had become so mature (成熟的).

Any ________ I had that she would regret her decision disappeared as I watched the hairdresser hand her the first ponytail (马尾辫). She was ________ and looked at it in excitement.

She wanted a ________, and she got it. I went into that salon with my little girl. I ________ with a young lady and a bag filled with the hair.

Days later, as we stood in line at the post office to mail her hair, I looked at my daughter and felt ________ of the kind and thoughtful young lady she'd become.

In Thanks for What We Have

I sat nervously and waited for Kathleen to speak. Being called to the human resources department is a little like being called to the principal’s office. “Annie,” she said, “A food bank in our town that serves the elderly is asking for _______. I’d like you to organize the event and see it through.” “Well, um, errr…sure. I guess so.” As I stuttered(结结巴巴地说) through my response , all I could think was, “What? Why me?”

I walked back to my office without any idea as to where to _______. This was a time when the economy was fading. The rise in unemployment forced the families of many of my coworkers to _______ to survive. How could I ask my coworkers for more?

That evening I drove home filled with negativity. Then I remembered a time long ago when my father was out of work. Mom wrote a note to Jim, the milkman, asking him not to deliver any more milk. Two days later Jim picked up the _______ and left four liters of milk. He wrote his own message on the back side of Mom’s. It read, “Kids need milk.” The milk delivery continued as usual and Jim left four liters of milk every other day, never collecting a cent _______ us.

The memory of Jim’s _______ fired my enthusiasm. Perhaps I’d be in for a pleasant surprise.

The next morning I posted signs about our food drive all over the cafeteria and on every notice board I could find. Each sign read, “Food drive to support the elderly poor of our town! Donations of non-perishable(不易腐的) foods are greatly needed.”

Within a few days I had to locate empty office space to _______ the massive number of contributions we had collected. One of my coworkers, Maggie, made the rounds with me every day from one department to another to pick up the canned goods and other foods. Maggie was over sixty but pushed our food trolley around with the _______ of a woman half her age.

As we were making our rounds one day, I asked her where she got all the energy and enthusiasm. “Annie,” she said, “with the unemployment rate touching 10 percent, I can’t think of a better way to be _______ for keeping our jobs when so many have lost theirs. Sure money is tight. But when isn’t it? People need food.”

As I listened to Maggie, the milkman’s words ________ in my ears, “Kids need milk.”