Growing pains and gains

It's not easy to grow up. Actually it's far from easy. Growing up can be a real "pain" for some of us. We are always doing things that someone else makes us do and aren't allowed to do all the things we like. Sometimes we feel trapped, sometimes we are fearful, and sometimes we just don't understand why we can't stay young forever. When we look back on all the hardships in life with a positive attitude（态度）, we realize that all of our growing pains actually turn into growing gains！

As a young girl my parents forced my sisters and me to do so many things that I never liked. They made me learn to play the violin and then the piano. At that time I hated music, just because it was what they wanted me to do. But looking back now, I am so glad that my parents encouraged me to take music lessons. Music has enriched my life in so many ways. I realize that my parents and teachers were always pushing me along, not because they wanted me to suffer but because they wanted me to succeed in life. They've always wanted me to have a better life than they did themselves.

Every moment of our lives we are either living or dying, so live life to its fullest！We are all going to experience growing pains, but they are just small pains in life. They might seem so huge at the time but we must be strong. Think about how we would feel if we had no fear and live life like that. The future is ours！

A little hard work and sweat never hurt anyone！If we realize that these pains are just small bumps（凸块）on our road to success we will realize that our growing pains are actually growing gains！

   I was fifteen months old, a happy kid until the day I fell. It was a(n)_______ fall. I landed on a glass rabbit which cut my eye badly enough to make it blind. Trying to save the eye, the doctors stitched(缝合) the eyeball together where it was _______, leaving an ugly scar(疤) in the middle of my eye. The attempt _______, but my mother, in all of her wisdom, found another doctor who knew that if the eye was removed _______, my face would grow up badly distorted(畸形的), _______ my scarred, sightless, cloudy and gray eye lived on with me. As I grew, this sightless eye in so many ways _______ me.

I walked with my face looking at the _______ so that people would not see the _______ me. Yet my mother would say to me, at every turn, "Hold your head up high and _______ the world. If you hold your head up high, it will be OK, and people will see your ________ soul. " She continued this ________ whenever I was trying to hide.

Mother’s words were of great help for me to face the world ________. As a teenager, even though I tended to look down to ________ my shame, I found that sometimes when I held my head up high and let people know me, they ________ me. In high school, I was ________ both academically and socially. I was ________ elected monitor. My mother’s words helped me begin to realize that by letting people look at my face, I let them ________ the intelligence and beauty behind both eyes, even if they couldn't see it on the ________.

Now I'm a happy wife and great mother. The message "Hold your head up high" has been ________ many times in my sweet home. Each of my children has felt its ________, and the gift my mother gave me has lived on in another generation.