Originally, I don’t think about getting older. Perhaps it’s because I like to keep busy and just don’t think about it. ________, sometimes something happens that makes me ________ my death and what lies ahead.

I used to be a radio broadcaster and recently I was ________ by the activity director at a senior citizen’s home near where I live. She told me there are a couple of former broadcasters who live in the home and they would really ________ a visit from someone with a ________ background who can trade stories with them about the good old days. I’m retired, and I have some free time so I said, “sure, I’d come for a visit or two.” That has developed a ________ in which I spend an afternoon each week ________ the old boys and helping them to ________ their happier and busier times.

One of them, it turns out, is ________ tied to an oxygen generating machine, can only ________ in a wheel-chair, and ________, has dementia(痴呆) and knows he is ________ losing his memory and ability to think clearly. My other new friend in the home is about ten years than I. He has cerebral palsy (大脑瘫痪) and is also ________ to a wheel-chair. Neither man can live ________ any more: they can’t drive a car, can’t prepare their own meals, and can’t plant a garden. But they’re being well ________ and they have television, people to serve their daily needs and workers at the home who try their best to keep them comfortable. They have family members who visit them ________ and now I guess they have me. It makes me consider what lies ahead, perhaps not for a number of years, perhaps tomorrow, I have no way of ________.

The thought of being dead doesn’t ________ me, for I’m in absolutely no hurry to get there. What worries me is the process of dying. I’m getting older but I’m still going strong and feeling ________. I go to visit the men in the senior’s home and sometimes I look ahead into the unknown. Life gets ________ in unexpected ways as one gets older.