In 2022, a father and his son set out to begin the first of three legs of the Ironman (铁人三项) competition. Jeff, 59, and son, Johnny, 28, weren’t the typical ________. Johnny is disabled and Jeff would ________ his arms and legs. To ________ the competition, athletes must complete a(n) ________ 140 miles of swimming, bicycling and running within 17 hours.

“I wanted to ________ his dreams,” Jeff said. “I started doing things I never would have dreamt possible.” Finishing the Ironman competition would be another dream come true.

The race began with a 2.4-mile swim in the Choptank River. The ________ completed the swim in 90 minutes, and completed the difficult bike part in eight hours, then set their sights on the ________ leg of the race — a 26.2-mile marathon with Jeff ________ Johnny in the racing chair. They’d been competing for 5 hours, leaving another 3 hours to make their time. But at mile 19, Jeff began to panic, convinced they were going too slow. Somehow he ________ the energy to pick up the pace.

With 15 minutes left and 200 feet to the finish line, Jeff stopped to help Johnny out of his racing chair. In the first decade of his life, Johnny could only walk 23 steps. ________, after years of painstaking work, he ________ his step number and was determined to finish his races on his own. Johnny saw the clock ticking down and ________ they wouldn’t complete it. “Not because I wouldn’t get my moment,” he says, “but because Dad had worked so hard.”

After 16 hours, 55 minutes and 35 seconds — with just four minutes and 25 seconds to ________— father and son crossed the finish line together.

As the crowd cheered on an excited Johnny, a(n) ________ Jeff kept a low profile (保持低调).

“He didn’t want his finish line moment,” says Johnny. “He wanted it to be ________.”

Hey, That’s Me!

Dolls are usually seen as a toy that can be played with. However, Amy Jandrisevits knows the ______ of a good doll “Dolls have a power we don’t ______ understand,” she told The Today Show. It’s a(an) ______ she got while working as a social worker in the childcare center using dolls to help her young patients ______ to their changing medical situations. Many of the kids ______ themselves in those dolls. But for the kids without a leg or who had lost their hair, there were none they could ______.

So, seven years ago, when a friend mentioned that her child was under depression, Jandrisevits knew what might help the youth through this ______ period. She made a doll by hand— using fabric(纤维), stitching(缝补), and markers — and sent it off. After the friend ______ a photo online of the happy child and doll, another woman asked Jandrisevits to make a doll that looked like her baby, who was ______ a leg.

Word ______ , and soon Jandrisevits was making dolls for children with scars, birthmarks, facial deformities(缺陷) in short, a doll that looked like them. She ______ her job and started a nonprofit, A Doll Like Me. Working out of her home, it ______ Jandrisevits about seven hours to make each doll. A GoFundMe page helps her ______ costs and allows her to donate her services. She hasn’t asked for any money for a doll since she began her nonprofit.

As she explains on her GoFundMe page, “Every kid, ______ gender, race, age, medical issue, or body type, should look into the ______ face of a doll and see their own ”

Evelyn Glennie was the first lady of solo percussion (独奏打击乐) in Scotland. In an interview, she recalled how she became a percussion soloist in spite of her disability.

“Early on I decided not to allow the________of others to stop me from becoming a musician. I grew up on a farm in northeast Scotland and began________piano lessons when I was eight. The older I got, the more my passion for music grew. But I also began to gradually lose my________. Doctors concluded that the nerve damage was the________and by age twelve, I was completely deaf. But my love for music never________me. 

“My________was to become a percussion soloist, even though there were none at that time. To perform, I________to “hear” music differently from others. I play in my stocking feet and can________the pitch of a note (音调高低) by the vibrations (振动) I feel through my body and through my imagination. My entire sound world exists by making use of almost every________that I have. 

“I was________to be assessed (评价) as a percussion soloist, not as a deaf musician, and I applied to the famous Royal Academy of Music in London. No other deaf student had________this before and some teachers were against my admission. Based on my performance, I was________admitted and went on to graduate with the academy’s highest honors.” 

“After that, I established myself as the first full-time solo percussionist. I wrote and arranged a lot of musical compositions since________had been written specially for solo percussionists.” 

“I have been a soloist for over ten years.________ the doctor thought I was totally deaf, it didn’t mean that my passion couldn’t be realized. I would encourage people not to allow themselves to be________by others. Follow your passion; follow your heart. They will lead you to the place you want to go.”