大一综合英语unit 1.docVIP

 PAGE \* MERGEFORMAT 13 Detailed Reading Text I Never Say Goodbye When I was ten I was suddenly confronted with the anguish of moving from the only home I had ever known. My whole life, brief as it was, had been spent in that big old house, gracefully touched with the laughter and tears of four generations1. When the final day came, I ran to the haven of the small back porch and sat alone, shuddering, as tears welled up from my heart. Suddenly I felt a hand rest on my shoulder2. I looked up to see my grandfather. “It isn’t easy, is it, Billy?” he said softly, sitting down on the steps beside me. “Grandpa,” I replied through my tears, “how can I ever say goodbye to you and all my friends?” For a moment he just stared off into the apple trees. “Goodbye is such a sad word,” he said. “It seems too final, too cold, for friends to use. We seem to have so many ways of saying goodbye and they all have one thing in common: sadness.” I continued to look into his face. He gently took my hand in his. “Come with me, my friend,” he whispered. We walked, hand in hand, to his favorite place in the front yard, where a huge red rosebush sat conspicuously alone. “What do you see here, Billy?” He asked. I looked at the flowers, not knowing what to say, and then answered, “I see something soft and beautiful, Grandpa.” Kneeling, he pulled me close. “It isn’t just the roses that are beautiful, Billy. It’s that special place in your heart that makes them so.” His eyes met mine again. “Billy, I planted these roses a long, long time ago — before your mother was even a dream3. I put them into the soil the day my first son was born. It was my way of saying thank you to God. That boy?s name was Billy, just like yours. I used to watch him pick roses for his mother4.” I saw my grandfather’s tears. I had never seen him cry before. His voice became hoarse. “One day a terrible war came, and my son, like so many sons, we