Like the Christmas before, we called my family in Canada. Those calls were ______ , but I couldn’t relax. I ______ had one more call to make, and I was afraid. I paced the house.

Five years before, I had _____ an e-mail from my brother. At the time, I had been out of work for several months. My life was very ______. My brother’s e-mail was nothing terrible but it made me ______. I wrote back. As I typed, my anger grew. Months of frustration flowed into my ______. I didn’t care if I ever ______ him again. The next day I received another e-mail from him. I didn’t read it. I just deleted it, and then I ______ his e-mail address. For five years, he tried to get through to me but I ______ him. I had lived with this terrible ______. I thought about contacting him, but was ______ of myself for what I’d said.

It was time to ______ it. I took a deep breath and dialed his number. There was no answer. I left a message. I told him I was sorry and left my number. I prayed for his ______. The phone didn’t ______. Then a week after I called, I received his message. In the weeks to follow, we e-mailed back and forth. The healing began. Since then, we have grown ______ again.

There was something in the elderly woman’s behavior that caught my eye. Although _________ gestures, the woman moved steadily (平稳地), and there was no hesitation in her gestures. She was as _________ as anyone else, as her movements suggested. And she had a job to do.

The old woman left from her _________ son and began to tick through the DVDs on the nearest shelf. After the slightest hesitation, I _________ and asked if I could help her find something. The woman smiled up at me and showed me a title written on a piece of paper. The title was unusual and a bit difficult to understand. _________ a person looking for it knew something about movies, and had a special taste of it.

Rather than rushing off to locate the DVD for the woman, I asked her to walk with me so I could show her where she could _________ it. I think I wanted to enjoy her _________ for a moment. Something about her deliberate movements _________ me of my own mother, who had passed away last year.

We found the _________, and I praised her on her choice. She smiled and told me it was one she had enjoyed when she was her son’s age and that she hoped he would enjoy it as much as she had. “Maybe,” she said, with a little bit __________, “he could enjoy it with his own young children.”

I showed the old woman the way to the queue at the cash register. When the older woman’s __________ in line came, she paid in cash, counting out the dollars and coins with the same __________ she’d displayed earlier.

I walked over to the old woman’s son and told him to __________ her, because when she’s gone, it’s the little moments that’ll come back. It’s true. I __________ my mom still and remembered the moments when I’d used my impatience to make her __________.

I was facing a decision. While delivering laundry into ________ bedroom, I came across my thirteen-year-old sister’s diary, suffused (弥漫) with ________. What was I to do?

I had always been ________ of my little sister. Her charming smile, endearing personality and many talents ________ my place as leading lady. I competed with her secretly and grew to hate her natural abilities. ________, we seldom spoke. I sought opportunities to ________ her. Her diary lay at my feet, and I didn’t think of the ________ of opening it, considering not her privacy, nor the morality of my action.

I took the book from the floor and opened it ________, looking through the pages, searching for my name, convinced that I would discover ________. As I read, the blood ran from my face. I felt ________ and sat on the floor. There was neither charge nor hate. There was a brief description of herself, her goals and her dreams followed by a short description of the person who has ________ her most.

I started to cry. I was her ________. She admired me for my personality, my achievements and, ironically (嘲讽地), my ________. She wanted to be like me. She had been watching me for years, quietly admiring my choices and actions. I stopped reading, ________ with the crime I had committed.

I had wasted years hating her and now I had violated her ________. It was I who had lost something beautiful, and it was I who would never ________ myself to do such a thing again. Reading the earnest words my sister had written seemed to ________ an icy barrier around my heart, and I longed to know her again. On that fateful afternoon, as I ________ the laundry and rose to my feet, I ________ to go to her—this time to experience instead of to judge, to ________ instead of to fight. After all, she was my sister.