Every year on my birthday, from the time I tur ned twelve, a white gardenia was delivered t o my house. No card came with it. Calls to th e flower shop were not 1_____ at all. After a w hile I stopped trying to 2_____ the sender's n ame and just delighted in the beautiful white flower in soft pink paper.
However, I never 3_____ imagining who the gi ver might be. Some of my happiest 4_____ w ere spent daydreaming about the sender. My mother encouraged these imaginings. She'd ask me if there was someone for whom I had shown special 5_____. Perhaps it was the old man across the street whose mail I'd deliver ed during the winter. As a girl, though, I had more fun imagining that it might be a 6_____I had run into. One month before my graduation, my father died. I felt so sad that I became completely7 _____ in my upcoming graduation dance, and I didn't 8_____ if I had a new dress or not. Bu t my mother, despite her own sadness, woul d not let me 9_____ any of those things. She wanted her children not only to be lovable b ut to feel 10_____. In truth, my mother wante d her children to see 11_____ much like the g ardenia -lovely, strong and perfect with per haps a bit of mystery (神秘). My mother died ten days after I was married. I was twenty-two years old. That was the ye ar the gardenia stopped 12_____.