Within minutes, that woman was at my door and a thousand thoughts crossed my mind before she rang the bell. I could pretend I wasn’t home or tell her, “I’m sorry, you have the wrong _______.”

But it was too late; the bell rang and Molly was barking. I opened the door, _______ myself to face my fear.

One look at Molly and the woman’s face _______ like a Christmas tree. “Here, Lucy,” she called. “Come to Mamma, girl.” Molly (Lucy) instantly obeyed, wagging her tail _______ at the sound of the woman’s voice._______, she belonged to the woman.

Tears were at the back of my eyelids and threatened to _______ at any moment. I wanted to grab Molly and run. _______, I smiled faintly and asked her to come in please.

The woman had already bent over and _______ Molly up into her arms. She awkwardly opened her purse and stretched out, a twenty-dollar bill.

“For your_______” she offered.

“Oh, I couldn’t.” I shook my head. “She’s been such a joy to have ________, I should be paying you.” With that she laughed and hugged Molly tighter ________she were a lost child.

Molly licked her face wildly. I knew it was time for them to go home. Opening the door to let them out, I ________a little girl sitting in the front seat of the van. When the child saw the puppy, a smile as bright as a firecracker exploded________her face.

My glance turned to a small ________fastened to the back of the van. The woman saw me look at the chair and offered a(n)________ without my asking. Molly (Lucy) was given to the child to ________emotional healing after a car accident had left her crippled for life.

“She formed a special bond with the puppy and Lucy gave her a ________ to live,” her mother explained.

Suddenly I felt very ________ and selfish. God has blessed me with so much, I thought. As they pulled out of the drive, the smile on my face was ________. I knew I had done the right thing — that puppy was exactly ________ she belonged.

A trip to the bookstore with my granddaughter is always a big event. She ___ in it for hours, touching the books, running her hands over the covers, looking at a few ______ here and looking at a few pages there.

I never _____ the full importance my five-year-old Grand Angel placed on these trips, until the day I suggested she pick the book she liked best, ______ we could go home for dinner. Her response was _____.

“But Grammy, I ______ them all the best. All the covers are be-yoo-tiful and all the pictures are bee-yoo-tiful and they’re all _____. Just like people. Remember when you told me about people?”

I most certainly ____ when I told her about people. I had explained that we are all _____ in our own different way. Each of us has a story to ______ and no two stories are similar. We learn by ______ our stories and listening to the stories of others. Difference is the thing that makes each and every one of us _____. I had no idea that she’d connected the lesson with ______. Actually, no one book was ______ than any other book. They were equally beautiful and equally special (特别的).

With dinner still ______ and our stomachs beginning to make noise, ______ time was finally at hand. But how to choose? I suddenly ______ the right question when I asked, “Which book wants to go home the most with you today?” After a short moment of ______, her eyes lit up. She ran to a specific book and ______ it from its place on the shelf. The main ______ was the picture on the cover, a turtle with sad eyes. “We need to find out why the turtle is sad,” she said.

My wife and I usually don’t keep houseplants. Anything in pots gets either overwatered or underwatered. But after my diagnosis with a brain cancer, I loved the idea of having something green and ________ around us.

Last year, my friend Mitch gave me a lucky bamboo plant. Tending to the plant gave me a sense of ________ at a time when I sometimes felt useless because my ability to move was limited. As a physician, I was used to being the one who ________ care. Watering the plant ________ me to a core part of my old identity and taught me I could still be a caregiver.

However, after several weeks growing in perfect condition, the plant ________ began to show signs of stress. No matter what I did, the leaves kept ________ and dropping to the floor.

“I can’t even care for a simple plant!” I yelled. “If my lucky bamboo dies, I might die too!”

Identifying with the green and growing plant had offered me comfort. But when the tree was struggling, I felt increasingly uneasy and ________.

It was several months later when I recovered from surgery that I realized I had wrongly linked my careful nurturing of the plant—something over which I had at least some control—with my own ________—something over which I had no control.

As my ________ lessened, I began to study online tutorials to figure out how to care for the tree. I transplanted it to a larger pot, and when it was back in the sunny window, we both began to thrive (旺盛) again.

Now whenever I look at the tree in its new pot, I make a point to relax and think of the things I can ________.