Taylor opened her sleepy eyes and looked out the window at the foggy field below. “NO!” she cried, now fully ________ . Buttermilk the cow was in Mama’s daisy patch(雏菊花地). I must have forgotten to close the gate last night, Taylor thought, as she ________ a sweatshirt over her head. Mama was planning to sell daisy bunches at the fair next week. ________, Buttermilk was eating the flowers.

Mama came out of the house. “What’s going on?” she asked. She looked ________ at her garden.

“I forgot to close the ________ to the garden,” Taylor said, “I’m so sorry.”

“I know you are,” Mama sighed and gave Taylor a hug. “You learned an important lesson.” Taylor’s heart was ________ as she went back into the house. She had to think of a way to ________ for it to her mother. A painting on the wall caught Taylor’s eye. “That’s it,” she ________.

Taylor raced ________. She grabbed her art supplies and sat down at her desk, looking out the window at the ________ daisies below. As her brush moved smoothly across the paper, daisies ________ . Taylor made one painting after another. The morning of the fair, Dad ________ daisy bunches into the van. “That’s half the number I usually have, but it’s still worth taking them,” Mama said.

“Mama,” said Taylor, “I have a ________ for you upstairs.” When they reached Taylor’s bedroom, Taylor opened the door. Daisy paintings were everywhere, bright and ________ in the morning light.

“Do you think anyone will ________ them?” Taylor asked. Mama smiled. “Oh, sweetie, yes. I’m sure they will.”

When I heard my name pronounced by the teacher, I knew what lay ahead. She called me to the whiteboard to _____a long division (除法) problem. Math was my _____subject. When doing a long division problem, I always _____put the numbers in the wrong places, _____forgot to add in the zeros.

As I _____the whiteboard, I looked at the blonde haired girl next to me, trying to _____what she was writing. _____I tried my best, she went faster than I could understand. Impossible to understand. Why me? Why couldn’t I wrap my mind around this strange concept that all the other kids understood? Why, even when I _____my hardest to deal with the division problems?

Why? Why?

I _____back salty tears and wrote some numbers randomly (随便地) on the board. The teacher read over our answers silently.

“Now, class, Susie did this problem absolutely correctly.”

“As for Tara,” the teacher said, _____her eyes, “Gosh, I don’t _____know what she did.”

The class burst into _____, and I felt my face turned _____as I tried to sink as low as possible into my seat, hoping to _____them from seeing me at all. However, after class my teacher wrote me a note, _____, “No one will care how you feel, unless you _____yourself to succeed.”

This _____from middle school is the most impressive and the only one I can remember. The experience made me feel stronger, and gave me _____. When I get a _____grade in school, or am put down by somebody, I think of that moment and every single one of those whys that I asked myself, which gives me the willingness to _____all of those whys and continue until perfection, or as close as I can get.

“Your son has suffered brain damage,” the doctor told my mother after I was born in the hospital. “He will never walk or speak and I_________you find a suitable institution in which to place him”. Mom's response was a stubborn determination to prove him     _________.

The next year should have been one of firsts, but mine came   _________than average. Photos show I am a healthy child. What you can't ___________ are mom's eager hands supporting me from behind _______ I couldn't sit up. Although my athletic ___________ were lacking, my cognitive(认知的) abilities convinced her I was _______. Mom began to exercise my arms and legs. _______was slow, but she continued trying. Several trips to hospitals didn't _______ doctors of any progress. However, all the non-stop exercise paid off. At 2, I could sit up and move around on my behind, ________ I still couldn't crawl like a baby. A piece of equipment was     ____________: the “standing box.” Locked into an upright(直立) position, I screamed for ____________. Mom had to explain to the neighbors I wasn't being ______________. After each treatment in the box, she would hold me close, telling me I would someday ____________

For six months, using the equipment was painful, but it ____________ . One day as I was copying the________________of cartoon characters, I jumped up and started running around the room. Laughing and jumping around, I called out to Mom. She ________ silently from the kitchen doorway, nodding with tears in her eyes.____________, her little Patrick had defeated the “experts”.

Then I went to preschool, high school and college and   ______________an editor of a famous magazine.

Thanks, Mom. The   ____________   you chose has made all the difference.