完形填空
阅读下面短文，从短文后各题所给的四个选项（A、B、C和D）中，选出可以填入空白处的最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。
My father was a self-taught mandolin (曼陀铃) player. He was one of the best string ________ players in our town. He could not ________ music, but if he heard a tune a few times, he could play it.
Dad loved to play the mandolin for his ________ for he knew we enjoyed singing, and hearing him play. He was always there, ________ his time and efforts to making sure that his family had enough in their life. I had grown into a man and had children of my own ________ I realized how much he had sacrificed.
I joined the United States Air________ in January of 1962. Whenever I would come home ________ , I would ask Dad to play the mandolin. He could ________ your soul with the tones that came out of that old mandolin. He seemed to shine when he was playing. You could see his ________ in his ability to play so well for his family.
In 1950, our family moved to Maryland. While working at Todd Steel, he was ________ in an accident. On that particular day, Dad got the third index finger of his left hand ________ by the machine. ________ he didn’t lose enough of the finger where it would stop him picking up anything, it did ________ his ability to play the mandolin. After the accident, every time we asked him to play, he would make ________ for why he couldn’t play. Eventually, we could persuade him and he would say, “Okay. But I can’t hold down on the strings and play as well as before.” For the family it didn’t make any ________ .
In August of 1993, my father was discovered with lung cancer. He chose not to receive treatments so that he could live out the rest of his life ________ dignity. About a week before his death, we asked Dad if he would play the mandolin for us. He made excuses but said “okay”. He knew it would probably be the ________ time he would play for us. He tuned up the old mandolin and played a few ________ . When I looked around, there was not a ________ eye in the family. We saw before us a quiet man with an inner strength. Dad would never play the mandolin for us again. Dad was doing something he had done all his life,