2013高中英语阅读素材：Pack up your loved ones 带上至亲至爱.docVIP

Pack up your loved ones 带上至亲至爱 我的朋友Vikki总是随身携带有至爱亲人的祷告卡，不管是去澳大利亚广袤的内地欣赏无限风光，还是去希腊梦幻般的岛屿度假，她都将亲人“装进行囊”，一如他们就在身旁……When I was a kid, I remember my dad used to sing an old, WWI song, “Pack up your Troubles,” while he was getting dressed for work in the morning. The lyrics from the chorus of the song play in my head often when I’m packing for a trip—“Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile.”Lately, with TSA regulations seemingly changing daily, packing my kit bag with clothes, toothbrush and Ziploc-baggie of three-ounce bottles seems more like trouble than fun, fun, fun.For my friend, Vikki, though, what to pack isnt as important as whom to pack. She takes her family and friends everywhere. Vikki took her mother skiing in Mammoth last November and she took my mother-in-law to the ruins of Machu Picchu and Rome. Vikki has taken numerous people to exotic places like the outback in Australia, and the Greek Islands—all posthumously and in her bag.You see, Vikki collects prayer cards from funerals and memorials of her loved ones and takes them with her wherever she goes. The cards, some with watercolor images of Jesus and others with pictures of a deceased friend and “in loving memory” printed beneath, are bound together with a rubber band and stashed somewhere in Vikki’s carry-on.Im fascinated by this practice and ask her about it often. I like to keep tabs on the number of cards she carries as it increases. At last count Vikki was toting around forty people. I’ve often thought that when the tally reached fifty-two, I’d propose some kind of card game we could play. My husband, Larry and I sometimes travel with Vikki and her husband, Bill, so we could while away the hours on trains and boats by playing some modified version of war, poker, or go-fish.Obviously, I’m not as sentimental about Vikki’s collection as she is, but on a trip two years ago, I witnessed the power of those prayer cards.Larry and I were in Peru with Vikki and Bill. W