A visit to the hospital is rarely a pleasant one. As I made my way to the ward(病房), I took a deep breath and_______ a smile. After all, nobody needed another_______ face in the room.

As I entered the ward, I overheard my relatives making plans for a funeral. My grandfather had remained _______ for almost a week, with a _______ diagnosis from the doctor. Was this really the end for him? _______ at my grandparents' place since young, I_______a very close relationship with them. He would sneak me downstairs for ice cream when Grandmother was in the bathroom, while I _______added more sugar in his morning drink because he had a sweet tooth that Grandmother disapproved of.

I wanted to_______ this quiet man. I did not believe it was his time to go. I had read about paper cranes(鹤) and wishes coming true. For every one thousand folded paper cranes, we get a wish granted by the gods. Ridiculous as it sounds to the adults, I managed to_______ my sisters and cousin to carry out this sacred plan.

The last few cranes were ________but a week later he was still in a deep sleep. The one thousand paper cranes had not delivered our________ to the gods. We only had one wish -was that too________to ask for?

Just when all hope seemed________, a call from my aunt changed everything. She wanted us to come to the hospital immediately my grandfather was awake. A visit to the hospital is ________a pleasant one. However, this time, I was________by the scent(香气) of flowers that visitors brought. I stepped into my grandfather's ward and saw him holding our jar of paper cranes. This man of few words looked up at me and said, “My good girl, thank you.”

My parents fixed in me the ideas of family, faith and patriotism(爱国主义) when I was young._________we struggled to make ends meet, they___________ to me and my four brothers and sisters how _________ we were to live in a great country with ___________ opportunities.

I got my first real _________ when I was ten. My dad injured his back working in a factory and had to be _________as a hairstylist. The owner of the shopping center gave Dad a(n) _________on his rent for cleaning the parking lot(停车场) three nights a week, which meant a little _________that looked like a lawn mower(割草机). Mom and I emptied garbage cans and _________ waste by hand. It took two to three hours to clean the lot. I’d __________in the car on the way home because of tiredness.

I did this for two years, but the ________I learned have lasted a lifetime. I ________discipline and a strong work ethic(道德准则), and learned at a(n) ____________age the importance of balancing life’s ________interests­in my case, school, homework and a job. This really __________during my senior year of high school, when I worked 40 hours a week at a fast­food restaurant while taking college­pre ____________.

The hard work ____________. I attended the U．S Military Academy and went on to receive graduate degrees in __________and business from Harvard. __________, I joined a big Los Angeles law firm and was elected to the California State Assembly(议会). In these jobs and in everything else I’ve done. I have never forgotten those __________in the parking lot.

From my second grade on, there was one event I feared every year: the piano recital(独奏会). A recital _________I had to practice a boring piece of music and perform before strangers. Each year I would ask my father if I could skip the recital “just this once”. And each year he’d shake his head, saying something about building self-confidence and working toward a(n)_________So it was with really great_________that I stood in church one recent Sunday, video camera in hand, and watching my 68-year-old father sweating in his shirt before_________to play the piano in his very first recital

My father has had a(n)_________to play music since childhood, but his family was poor and couldn’t afford lessons. He could have gone on regretting it, as too many of us do. But though he was rooted in his past, he wasn’t _________there. When he retired three years ago, he_________his church music director to take him as a student.

For a moment after my father sat down at the keyboard, he simply stared down at his fingers. Has he forgotten the_________? I worried, remembering those split seconds _________ago when my mind   would go blank (空白的) and my fingers would__________ .But then came the beautiful melody(旋律), from the__________fingers that once baited(装饵于)my fishing lines. And I__________ he had been doing what music teachers always stress:__________the music and pretend the others aren’t there.

“I’m__________of him for starting something new at his age,” I said to my son Jeff. “Yeah, and doing it so __________,” Jeff added.

With his first recital, my father taught me more about courage and determination than all the words he used those 30-plus years ago.