A Person Who Has Influenced My Life

    There is always a time in one's life when a hero comes along. Someone who has inspired you can really help you learn what life is about.

    I 1 it as if it was yesterday. I was fifteen years old that year. It was around eight o'clock one evening when my mother 2 a phone call from her brother-in-law, who told us my aunt was in hospital and that the doctor 3 them she would need an operation immediately. My family became very 4about my aunt's situation.

    While my aunt was in the hospital with special 5 , my cousin Mark, who is mentally disabled, spent time with my family. Mark was seventeen at the time, and had been born with severe mental disorders, which 6 a wide range of social and physical problems for him throughout everyday life. He never had any true friend 7 no one could relate to him. I must 8 that at the beginning I was filled with uncertainty as to how much of a 9 my cousin would bring on my family. Now looking back it saddens me to see the 10 I once showed.

    Over the two weeks when Mark lived with my family, I probably 11 more about life and its meanings. Thinking back, I took 12 in daily life for granted, believing it would always be there. I never even thought about being able to do things like walking, brushing my teeth, or going to the bathroom on my own. Now I see how 13 I am to be able to do these things independently.

    Mark was seventeen, but learned on a nine-year-old 14. Although his learning ability was slower than most, he could still learn. He explored 15 to do most of the things everyone else did. 16 he did pretty well and succeeded in almost everything he tried to do. He 17 his illness and showed an ambition to love life. To him, having a successful life means achieving goals on his own terms and at his own 18.

    Mark is my hero, for his disability has forever 19 my viewpoint on life. It seems like a well-deserved life when you're fifteen, and it is amazing how in a period of time your point of view can change so 20 .

    I often remembered the lesson Father taught me.

    We were standing at the top of a church tower. My father had 1 me to this spot in a small town not far from our home. I wondered2.

    "Look down, Elsa," Father said. I gathered all my 3 and looked down. I saw the square in the centre of the village. And I saw the crisscross (十字形) of twisting, turning streets leading to the 4.

    "See, my dear," Father said gently. "There is more than one way to the square. Life is like that. If you can't get to the place where you want to go5 one road, try another."

    Now I understood why I was there. Earlier that day I had 6 my mother to do something about the terrible school lunches. But she 7 because she could not believe the lunches were as 8 as I said.

    When I turned to Father, he would not help. Instead, he brought me to this high tower to give me a9 the value of an open, searching mind. By the time we reached home, I had a 10.

    At school the next day, I11 poured my lunch soup into a bottle and brought it home. Then I asked the cook to serve it to Mother at dinner. Everything went on smoothly. She swallowed one12 and spat it out. Quickly I told her what I had done, and Mother stated13that she would take up the matter of lunches at school the next day!

    Years later，I began to work as a fashion (时装) designer. Two years ago. I was busy getting ready to show my winter fashions. But just 13 days before the presentation the sewing girls all stopped working. I was as 14 as my models. "We'll never make it," one of them cried.

    Accept the failure? 15 use wisdom to find another road to my goal? Then a great idea flashed through my mind—why not 16 the clothes unfinished?

    And, exactly 13 days later, our showing turned out to be so 17 that it was a great success. What a showing it was! Some coats had no sleeves; others had only one. Many of our clothes were still in an early stage. Our different showing caught the18 of the public, and orders for the clothes 19 in.

    Father's wise words had20 me once again, "There is always more than one way to the square."

    Grady threw down his backpack and slammed the car door shut.

    "This is going to be a really 1week," he said unhappily to no one 2. He looked around the campground. Hundreds of tall and green fir trees, some as tall as church towers, 3 the mountainside, giving it the appearance of a green carpet. The sun would be setting soon. Then, Grady thought, maybe the 4wouldn't be unbearable. But actually even up here in the5, the hot stickiness of July was closely attached to him.

    Grady hated camping, but it was something his family6 every summer. His father liked cooking over an open fire, telling stories about how to 7 things like bear attacks and swarms of bees. His mother and younger brother Jared liked to hike and take 8 of animals. Jared had a collection of bug pictures that he'd 9 to the walls in his half of their room. Grady thought they were just scary and proof that Jared was a 10 kid.

    They set up camp—two 11, one for his parents and one for himself and Jared. While everyone else started 12 dinner, Grady, looking for some place to cool down, set off for the nearby stream, which was deep enough to 13 in.

    As he 14 the stream, something caught his eye. There was a(an)15black bear cub—no more than two feet tall with a lovely face. It was playing pretty 16 at the water's edge,17 its surroundings. Grady moved closer to get a 18look. Then Grady heard a sound behind him. He 19 his father saying that bear cubs would never be20. Then he turned around and saw the cub's mother moving swiftly towards him…

    Anna is a nurse at the National Institutes of Health Center (NIHC). She didn't want the young 1 there, who couldn't go outside, to miss out on the winter 2when it was snowing outside last winter.

    The kids could see the snow 3. But they couldn't 4 it. Many of the kids had a type of immunodeficiency (免疫缺陷) and were waiting to have bone-marrow transplants (骨髓移植). The immunodeficiency put them at risk of infection, 5 while they were having transplants, they were even weaker, so they were6 to go out or be around many people.

    Also, there were kids from all over the world at the center and some of them had 7seen snow in their lifetime. Anna didn't want them to 8 the fun, so she had a(n) 9. Since the patients couldn't go out into the snow, Anna filled up a basin with 10 on her own and 11 it right to them. She made several trips 12 so all the kids would have fresh snow to 13.

    The children made snowballs, 14 the snow with colored pens and made snowmen. One child even 15 Anna with a snowball. They had a very 16snow day.

    After the children's parents knew what she had done for the kids, they 17her. Because of her, the children experienced the 18 brought by snow. One parent said, “My daughter has been at NIHC for almost eight weeks and has hardly been able to 19 her room, so it was so much fun for her to be able to play with the snow.”

    Anna was glad that she could do something to make the children 20.

    How did you do it, Dad? How have you managed not to take a drink for almost 20 years? It took me almost 20 years to have the 1 to even ask my father this very personal question. When Dad first 2 drinking, the whole family was on pins and needles every time he got into a 3 that, in the past, would have started him 4 again. For a few years we were 5 to bring it up for fear that the drinking would begin again.

    "I had this little poem that I would recite to myself at least four to five times a day," was Dad's 6 to my 18-year-old unasked question. "The words were a constant 7 to me that things were 8 so hard that I could not deal with them," Dad said. Then he 9 the poem with me. The poem's 10, yet profound words immediately became 11 of my daily routine as well.

    About a month after this 12 with my father, I received a gift in the mail from a friend of mine. It was a book of daily sayings of wisdom with one 13 for each day of the year.

    It has been my 14 that when you get something with days of the year on it, you naturally turn to the page that lists your own 15.

    I 16 opened the book to November 10 to see 17 words of wisdom this book had in store for me. I was 18 when I looked at the page, and then tears of disbelief and appreciation 19 down my face. There, on my birthday, was the exact same poem that had 20 my father for all these years! It is called the Serenity (平静) Prayer.

    God grant me

    the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;

    the courage to change the things I can;

    and the wisdom to know the difference.

    A sound woke Damian Languell at 8:15 in the morning. It was so 1that he assumed it came from inside his house. As he 2to investigate, he heard another sound, this one coming most 3from outside. Looking out of his bedroom window, he 4a tree covered by smoke about 500 yards away. A car was wrapped around the tree's 5, its engine on fire.

    Languell 6buckets of water and ran to the crash site. The car, a 1998 Buick Regal, was split nearly in two, and the 7was where the driver's seat ought to have been, as if 8there. No one should have 9this crash. Yet there was 16-year-old Quintin Thompson, whose 10face pressed against the driver's side window, in 11pain. Languell, 35, tried to put out the fire with his buckets of water with no 12. "When the flames got into the front seats, I 13I had to get him out of there, he told WAGM-TV."

    In an act that a police report described as showing "complete 14of his own safety", Languell climbed into the Buick's After Thompson was 15of the seat belt with his help, Languell pulled him out and then dragged the teen to 16before the entire car was totally in flames

    Although Thompson 17multiple injuries to his legs, arms and face, a social media post described him as "looking great, smiling and 18." Languell thinks about that day often. "My heart 19Thompson. When you are that close to that level of hurt, you feel the 20to help so directly."