One day during the 2007 — 2008 financial crisis, my dad took my brother and me to shop for school clothes. He had been _________ and was trying to find a job. My mom _________ a fast food restaurant, just enough to make a living. Even though I was _________, I realized that life was tough.

It seemed _________ to go shopping at that time, but we needed new _________ for the new school year. We each got two outfits and one pair of shoes. My brother wanted a pair of basketball shorts and my dad couldn’t say no, so he _________ them as well.

While we were _________, my dad seemed to be more and more _________ as the price went up on the register. Once everything was scanned, he realized he didn’t have enough money. He asked the cashier to take off the extra shorts_________ he still couldn’t afford it. He apologized to the man behind us while he tried to __________ what to take off. My dad was on the edge of __________.

Then, the man behind us gave the cashier a $100 bill to pay for us and told her to give the __________ to my dad. My dad tried to turn down but the man __________. My dad asked for his phone number so he could pay him back in the future, but the man told my dad to help someone else in need and that would be enough.

I, to this day, still remember __________ what he looked like. Whenever I see people __________, I remember his face and I try to help them as best I can.

One day when I was 12, my mother gave me an order: I was to walk to the public library, and borrow at least one book for the summer. This was one more weapon for her to _______ my strange problem —_______ to read.

To my astonishment, there on the book’s cover was a beagle which looked _______ to my dog. I ran my fingers over the picture of the dog on the cover. My eyes ran across the title, Amos, the Beagle with a Plan. ________, I had read the title. Without opening the book, I borrowed it from the library for the summer.

Under the shade of a bush, I started to read about Amos. I read very, very slowly with difficulty. Though ________ were turned slowly, I got the main idea of the story about a dog who, like mine, had been ________ his family and who finally found his way back home. That dog was my dog, and I was the little boy in the ________. At the end of the story, my mind continued the final scene of ________, on and on, until my own ________ dog and I were, in my mind, running together.

My mother’s call ________ me to the real world. I suddenly realized something: I had read a book, and I had loved reading that book. Everyone knew I could not read. But I had read it. Books could be incredibly ________ and I was going to read them.

I never told my mother about my amazing experience that summer, but she saw a slow but remarkable ________ in my classroom performance during the next year. And years later, she was proud that her son had read thousands of books, was awarded a PhD in literature, and ________ his own books, articles, poetry and fiction. The power of the words has ________.

Isn’t it incredible when a last- minute decision changes someone’s life in a major way?

On the day after Thanksgiving, Allison Scott and her boyfriend, Alfred Valdivia,________to head up to Big Bear Lake in California for a last- minute camping trip. The couple packed up for the trip, never once imagining that they were actually________on a rescue mission for a man they’d never met.

Allison and Alfred picked a camping site between Big Bear Lake and Angelus Oaks. They were relaxing when, ________, a low-flying plane caught their________. As the plane went by, they heard a man’s voice calling out for help somewhere nearby.________, they tracked the sound, and at the bottom of a hill, a man named Eric was_________ .

“We ended up finding him,” Allison________. “He had a stick with a water bottle on it trying to ________. He couldn’t walk, since his feet were extremely________and infected.”

Eric told the couple it was a “Thanksgiving________” that they’d discovered him. He’d left from his home two weeks earlier without________his family or friends. He didn’t own a cell-phone, either. He’d managed to________the past 14 days eating only half a jar of salsa.

Eric’s story is a great________ to everyone: Always tell someone where you’re going and when to expect you back if you’re going on a(n)________! And always bring more________than you think you’ll need.