I was in my home office on a cold Sunday when I heard a quick knock on the door. I _____ downstairs, threw open the door and saw my dad _____ something wrapped up in paper in his arms. Strangely, he had given no hint (暗示) of it when we spoke on the phone last night.

“Open it.” he said.

I opened it to find a yellow begonia (秋海棠). It occurred to me that it was Mother’s Day.

“But···but I’m not a mother.” I said, _____.

My dad smiled, “Well, some special people aren’t mothers. but I think they _____ to get flowers, too.” With that, he hugged me and drove off.

Later, I called to thank him and we got to talking a lot. That’s when he let me in on his little _____. He had decided that he would challenge himself to do one act of _____ per day. It had started several weeks before when he accidentally knew a friend of his was having a rough day. He knew she loved ice cream, so he drove straight to her house with a huge tub of ice cream.

“She laughed _____ when she saw it,” he said, “It really delighted me to know that I had _____ her day.”

When asked why, he added, “I already know about the importance of being _____ in the moment. So, I try to be there with each person I am spending time with. I want them to feel important and believe in the goodness in people in that moment.”

I realized my dad was making a difference in people’s lives. ______, I also want to be more like my dad, who goes out of his way to make people feel loved and cared for.

When my mom passed away only a few years after we’d lost Dad, the wound of my grief was ________ and deep. To save myself from ________, I play a game I call “It’s 1980”. Best done during a walk in the woods, always done alone, the rules are simple: Think of every single ________ of the year 1980, which was a very happy year for my family.

As I walk along the path through the park, I ________ each family member and picture what they might have been doing. Dad is in the garage, working on a car ________. I can smell fresh paint. Mom is in the kitchen, with another delicious supper in the slow cooker. On and on I go, letting this daydream become my ________ reality, feeling myself ________ the scent of what Mom’s cooking, the ________ of the breeze blowing in the open kitchen window.

________, on my walk, I come to the end and need to ________ the present. Having had my ________ vacation in the past, this is easy because I’ve realized that the girl who knew such happiness and love is still here, in the woman I am today. And I long to share the game with those struggling over the ________. It’s true that ________ have changed for me. ________, with “It’s 1980”, my loving memories can serve as a ________ that all is not lost, has never been lost.

I was going on a vacation trip. It had taken several years for my dad to accumulate the ________ needed for such a big trip, but now we are going! My mother hated travelling ________ she had decided not to come. At first, I ________ about going off without her, but soon I became an eager traveler and felt very ________.

The first day out I noticed Dad was wearing his new ________. It was a birthday present from his mother, so he regarded it as a special gift. “Can I ________ your watch?” I remember asking, feeling ________ at the time and wanting to find something interesting. Dad passed it to me.

I ________ it, loving the smooth, rich feel of it. I put it on, and of course, it ________ loosely from my wrist. I moved it back and forth, from hand to hand. I held it out the window as we ________ along.

“Don’t drop it,” Dad said.

“I won’t,” I replied. “I’m holding it tight.” I would never be so ________, I thought. After all, I wasn’t a ________ anymore.

And just that second, it was out of my ________. I shouted, “I dropped it!”

Dad immediately ________ on the shoulder of the road and stopped the car. “We must look for it,” he said simply.

Tears flooded my eyes. We will never find it. I thought, my mind crushed by my ________ action. We kept searching. What if we never find it? Then, “Here it is!” Dad called. He held it to his car and ________. He studied it and smiled again. The watch was still working. Never had I felt such ________!

After all this time, I still ________ that thing and how miserable I felt. My dad never held it against me. As wise fathers do, he knew how ________ I felt and figured it was a good ________ for me.