"Today is the day I start the big diet (节食)," I told my wife as I raised my hand and   __1__,
"No chocolate today!"
     "Oh, has the hospital gift shop   __2__   selling it?" she asked.
     "No," I said. "I'll just have to   __3__   my strong determination."
     But when I arrived at the hospital, my little friend Benton had been there   __4__. I knew my
promise would   __5__   disappear. Because if Benton had things his way, I'd always be eating a
piece of candy from the   __6__   bag he often shared with me.
     Benton was an eightyearold boy who was    __7__    because of a kind of cancer, which caused
him to live in the darkness, when he was fifteen   __8__   old. For the next twentysix months, he was
in and out of our hospital. For nearly four years, it seemed   __9__   Benton could beat the disease,
until one Friday afternoon in April 2009, when he   __10__   a headache and lost   __11__   on his
right side. His mom   __12__   him to the hospital.
     Over the next several months, Benton came to our   __13__ many more times. Each time he came,
we   __14__    say hello, while Benton answered the   __15__   by holding out a candy from his bag.
     So, on that first day of my diet, I went to his room and found Benton lying in his bed, his eyes  
__16__   but not looking into this world.
     "We brought his candy bag with us. Would you like to have some?" his mother asked.
     Without thinking of my diet, I   __17__   into the bag and pulled out the first piece my fingers touched.
It was my favorite as if Benton had saved one last piece   __18__   me. At home that evening, I answered a phone about Benton's   __19__. As I __20__   it up, I opened the candy and ate it.