A phone call reached me one cold winter day. I was 1 that my father was seriously ill. I had not seen my father since his divorce from my mom, and he had lived alone in a small trailer (拖车式活动房)in California, 500 miles away from me. The real 2 between us seemed much greater. I was in no hurry to change that, but 3 I promised to be there the next day. The whole drive down, 4 flashed through my mind. I remembered my father, the proud Marine (海军陆战队队员). He snatched off the Christmas tree all the decorations the rest of us had put up and rehung them so there was 5 the same spacing between them. But we needn’t 6 those military orders. I remembered clearly the battles he had with my mother. I remembered 7 to hear my father say just once, “I love you, Patty”, only to have him 8 at me, “You can’t do anything right!” Standing outside his trailer, I tried to 9 my courage to face him one more time. Slowly, I took a few steps inside, my hand and my whole body shaking, too 10 to believe my eyes. Sitting on the sofa, my father looked confused and frustrated. This wasn’t the angry and 11 man I had known growing up. This man was 12 and seemed broken. Part of me felt sorry for him, but another part of me was thinking this was exactly the fate he 13 . “God, what am I supposed to do now?” I wondered. But as soon as the words 14 me, a sense of sorrow 15 me, and I knew that I had to take him to my home. It was the 16 part I struggled with. The days of looking after my father turned into weeks, then months. All the pain, the conflicted feelings I’d been 17 over the years came rushing out. One night, I sat there, talking to God, begging him to help me let go of the ugly feelings I had toward my father. When I was finished, I felt an incredible peace, as if every 18 had been lifted from me. 19 had cleaned all that from me and I felt free to start living the joyful life God wanted me to live. It has been eight years since father died. Now when I think of him, those are the moments I remember, which are, as I put on Dad’s headstone, God’s amazing 20 .