I believe that the stories we tell our children shape the future stories of their lives.

As a father of four, I consider storytelling a vital part of family life because it provides ______ nourishment (营养) children need. However, that’s really not ______ I’m talking about.

All the bedtime storytelling I did to my kids was just ______ the groundwork for the lives I wanted them to have. With my kids, the typical bedtime stories, like Snow White and Little Red Cap, ______ the stories of my own life. One ______ like this: Uncle Rick fell asleep on the bus coming home from school. My Dad had to run after the bus, ______ and begging the bus driver to ______ him. My children never tired of hearing them. Soon, the place of the storytelling changed from the ______ to the dinner table.

My stories are ______ of who they’re now. They like to repeat them at family get-togethers and I ______ they’ve learned valuable life ______ during the retelling. They’re beginning to tell their own stories now too. There’s ______ sweeter to my ear than hearing my twenty-one-year-old kids say: “Remember the time when...” It’s like a(n) ______ of the old scenes.

These stories built a ______ of family that could never have been ______ in any school. What my kids were ______ in these stories was the ______ that they were part of something larger. ______ to me, these stories gave me a way to ______ each child with the other and then with me. This is how we ______ present the world to them and finally begin to change it.

When people ask me how I started writing, I find myself describing an urgent need that I felt to work with language. With some _______ from my colleagues, I had one of my poems published. This bit of _______, however, was the point where my problem began.

Back in 1978, I had to _______ between three different campuses in the morning, _______freshman composition. Afternoons I spent _______ my daughter to her ballet and horse-riding lessons. I _______ my lectures on the way, and that was all the thinking time I had. When I returned home, there was not enough of me left for writing after a _______ working day.

As a way out, I decided to get up two hours before my _______ time. My alarm was set for 5:00 A.M. I had to jump out of the _______and run to silence it before my family was ________. This was when my ________ writing began. I wrote my poems in this manner for nearly ten years before my first book was ________published. When I decided to write a novel, I ________my two hours: the first for poetry, the second for ________. Well or badly, I wrote at least two ________ a day. This is how my novel, The Line of the Sun was ________. If I had waited to have the ________, I would still be waiting to write my novel.

What I got out of getting up in the ________ to work is the feeling that I am in control. For many people, the initial sense of urgency to create easily ________ because it requires making the ________ decision: taking the time to create, stealing it from yourself if it’s the only way.

Brian Peters had one thing to do before leaving his job as a police officer in Brooklyn. He decided to spend $500 he ______ for his service to buy 10 gift cards and handed them out to strangers in Brooklyn Center on his ______ day.

It took him about two hours to ______ the cards and that he could put smiles on a lot of people’s ______, including one woman he stopped ______ noticing the condition of her car. “Her car was really old and really ______. I saw her screen wipers were ______ in the up position,” Peters said. “I ______ what I was doing and gave her a gift card, and ______ she lit up with a smile.”

Once people ______ the initial shock of what he was doing, Peters said he ______ a lot more hugs that day. Monique Drier, who ______ with Peters, said Peters has ______ wanted to give back and didn’t really want the attention. “He didn’t even have a going away ______,” Drier said. “He has always tried to ______ the human side of law practice. He was a great ______ and will be dearly missed.”

Peters, who started his ______ job three days ago, said he still wants to continue giving back to the ______. “Community service is extremely ______, and when you’re fortunate in life, you should give back to others who aren’t as fortunate as you, Peters said. That’s what ______ the world go round.”