My brother, James, four years old at the time, had always been my best friend, even though we were far apart in age. Then came the day when I was asking my mom about my brother’s doctor’s _______. They had tested him for autism (自闭症). “The test came out _______,” she said with tears in her eyes. I broke down, crying and asking why it had happened to James.

Everything changed. He was no longer that little brother who was just a (n) _______ baby boy.

One day, I was standing in the bus line, waiting when the short bus came. The children in the other line started _______ the “retards (智力迟钝者)” on that bus. As the other kids laughed at James, I said quietly that those _______ were not very nice. No one listened and I went on my way. I _______ it at once, and wished I had said something else.

Another day at our class meeting, our monitor, Tim, told us, “We are playing like the kids on the short bus! _______!” All the classmates were laughing when I _______ my hand. “Yes, Alexis?” Tim asked. The class quietened down because I was to talk for the first time. I could feel my face getting red and was about just to say, “Never mind,” when my _______ opened and this came out, “There are some people on that bus who have great ________ and have the same ________ as we do, so I would appreciate it if you didn’t make fun of them.

Tim ________ for his proposal (提议). At the end of the class, everyone was giving me ________ looks, but I didn’t ________, because I want to teach people about my brother James, who doesn’t know that he is ________. He’s just a four-year-old boy who loves baseball and eating cookies, and I never want to hear anybody make fun of him.

If my life were a movie I would fast-forward through junior school. My junior school years were_________. I remember I was_________by most of my classmates, being not accepted by the basketball team and_________to get into the football team for which I so_________to play. It was a time in which to be_________and accepted seemed something I could never, in all my life,_________.

During that time I would eat_________in the dining room, feeling unloved and_________. As spring came, one day I said I was_________because I had no one to eat with. Mom said to me, "__________you want, you can come home for lunch." That day, when lunch came, I rushed from the school and went home to__________. When I got there, Mom was getting a little chicken pot pie out of the oven for me. I sat at our kitchen table and Mom listened to me while I__________whatever was on my mind. She just paid attention to me. It's a__________thing to pay attention to people. And forty years later I remember those times__________.

Now you know a little more about how I__________home and mothers. Home is a place where you don't have to sit alone and eat. Home is a place where people__________you. Moms are people who listen to you when__________ else cares about you. Moms don't__________your dreams. Great__________fix you something warm to eat and just pay attention.

I'm not sure what was happening at the time__________I know those little chicken pot pies were worth running from school to home.

My cousin is nine years old, a little bit fat and doesn’t do really well at school. She is heavily_________, and thus has developed some resistance and_________towards adults, who usually don’t put high hopes in her.

Yesterday we went to an art exhibition together. There were paintings from kids with disabilities. My little girl has a_________eye, for the paintings she liked most were also the best of the show. She voluntarily helped to_________the chairs and table for a sharing session, painted by herself alongside new friends while I attended the sharing, and also_________helped me to get my bag from another room,_________ that doesn’t happen often at home as she’s usually glued to her iPad.

In the afternoon, we went to buy books together. I bought a book written by a mom_________her journey with her autistic (自闭的) son. On the bus back home, I briefly_________the book to my cousin, and to my surprise she was_________interested. She kept asking me to tell more stories about the boy in the book who__________with small things in life. Even when the subject strayed (偏离) elsewhere, she insisted on hearing more about this boy. This is the first time I’ve seen her so interested in a__________Usually when she talks to me she describes events at school and at home without a__________focus. I’m very touched that the life of a__________has found its way into this little girl’s heart.

I’m very thankful for the power of books, for the beauty that my cousin revealed to me, and for the time we had together. I__________that I can keep seeing clearly the wonderful things in her, so that whenever the__________world puts her down, I can remind her how truly wonderful she has always been.