1. (2024高二下·泉港月考) 阅读下面短文，从所给的四个选项中选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。

My brother Ken was born with a brain disease. Though Mama was extremely loving, she never babied Ken. She 1  him to do whatever we did.

I remember once we got a slide in our backyard. Ken was 2  at first sight. But unable to 3  the steps with the braces（支架）on his legs, Ken could only look up at the rest of us from the ground.

One day, Mama put Ken in the backyard, this time without his braces, and watched him 4  with great difficulty right over to the slide. For the next three hours, Ken climbed the ladder and fell, climbed the ladder and fell, 5 . He skinned his knees, and his head was bleeding.

Our neighbor 6 at Mama, "What kind of woman are you? Look at the blood. Get that boy off that ladder!" Mama told her kindly that if it 7 her, she would have to close her curtains. Ken had decided to go down the slide, and down the slide he would go. It took a couple of days of 8 before he could go up the ladder and down the slide as well as the rest of us, and another week before he could do it with his braces on.

Ken was not supposed to make it to his tenth birthday but he has 9  his disease and is now a 42-year-old man who lives 10  and even holds down a job. He 11  everything the way he did that slide so many years ago. What a(n) 12  Mama gave him that day by expecting him to be the 13  he could be.

Though I often feel I fall short when I compare my 14 to hers, it gives me great comfort to know that her spirit is 15 me, somewhere—preparing me to make "mothering magic" of my own.