From my second grade on, there was one event I feared every year: the piano recital(独奏演唱会). A recital ___1__I had to practice a boring piece of music and perform before strangers. Each year I ___2__ask my father if I could skip the recital "just this once". And each year he would shake his head, muttering(嘀咕) ____3_____about build self-confidence and working toward a ____4____.

　　So it was with really great___5___that I stood in church one recent Sunday, video camera in hand, and ___6___my 68-year-old father sweating in his shirt ___7___rising to play the piano in his very first recital.

　　My father had longed to play music since childhood, but his family was poor and couldn't _____8____lessons. He could have gone on regretting it, ___9____too many of us do. But though he was rooted in his past, he wasn't ___10_____there. When he retired three years ago, he ___11__ his church music director to take him as a student.

　　For a moment after my father sat down at the keyboard, he ___12___stared down at his fingers. Has he forgotten the ____13__? I worried, remembering those split seconds___14___ago when my mind would go blank and my fingers would ___15____. But then came the beautiful melody(旋律)，from the ___16__fingers that once baited(装饵于) my fishing lines. And I___17___he had been doing what music teachers always stress:___18_____the music and pretend the others aren't there.

　　"I'm ____19____of him for starting something new at his age," I said to my son Jeff.

　　"Yeah, and doing it so___20____," Jeff added.

　　With his first recital, my father taught me more about courage and determination than all the words he used those 30-plus years ago.

1. A. reflected B. explained C. meant D. proved

2. A. would B. could C. might D. should

3. A. nothing B. everything C. anything D. something