My parents divorced when I was five. I don’t remember them ________ more than “hi” or “bye” to each other for the rest of my childhood. I went to my dad’s house every other weekend, and they didn’t really ________ each other during the time. Years later, when my dad developed Alzheimer’s ________, my husband and I invited him to move in with us and our four children.

“Mom, how are we going to ________ this?” I asked. “Papa is going to be here ________, but we still want you to come and visit. We don’t want it to be strange.”

“Not a ________,” Mom replied ________. “We are just going to get over our past and all be friends.” Hearing this, I was so ________.

At our first family dinner together, I sat next to my husband and I ________: Mom, Papa, and my stepdad Doug, all at the same table.

“Strangest thing ever.” I ________ to my husband.

“Yes, but nobody else seems to think so,” he replied. “It’s ________.”

For the next ten years, Papa lived with us, and ________ Mom and Doug came over, the three of them would chat like old ________. My whole childhood, I had wished that my three parents could all ________ along. And here they were. It wasn’t exactly what I’d had in ________. But maybe this is what life truly means.

Quite often my mother would _________ me to set the family table with the “good china.” Because this _________ with such frequency, I never _________ these occasions. I assumed it was just my mother’s desire.

One evening as I was setting the table, Marge, a neighbor woman, _________ unexpectedly. She _________ on the door, and mother, busy at the stove, invited her to come in. Marge entered the kitchen and, _________ at the beautifully set table, remarked, “Oh, I see you’re expecting _________. I’ll come back another time.”

“No, it’s all right,” replied my mother. “We’re not expecting company.”

“Well then,” said Marge with a(n) _________ look on her face, “why would you have the good china out?”

“Because,” my mom answered, “I’ve prepared my family’s favorite meal. If you _________ your best table for special guests when you prepare a meal, why not for your own __________?”

“Well yes, but your beautiful china will get chips,” responded Marge.

“Oh well,” said Mom __________, “a few chips in the china is a small __________ to pay for the way we always feel as we gather as a family at the dinner table. Besides, all these chips have a story to tell, now don’t they?”

Mom walked to the cupboard and __________ a plate. Holding it up she said, “See this chip? This plate was broken the day we brought our newborn son home. Trying to be __________, my six-year-old daughter dropped that plate as she carried it to the sink. I’ll never forget that day.”

We all laughed. At that moment, I knew for sure that the china held for mother a number of love __________ about our family.