It’s a bust period in eastern Kentucky. We’ve been there before, and we look around to see no jobs, reduced hours or layoffs; families separated as men leave the area looking for work; grandparents taking care of their grandchildren; pots of pinto beans on the stove for dinner and supper with a pone of cornbread; dread of the Christmas season coming and disappointment on the faces of children as they have few presents or no presents unless the Empty Stocking Fund or another charitable group comes through.

Houses in foreclosure, car/truck payments behind, creditors calling, sick but reluctant to try to get medical help…. There’s no end to the list.

And what’s a man or woman to do?

Be thankful that you live in an area where your friends and neighbors — and sometimes strangers — greet you warmly.

Be thankful for sobriety among those you love.

Be thankful that you’re alive even as you grieve for the ones you love who have died this year.

Be thankful that the mountains that surround you will return to the vibrancy of colors of spring with dogwood, red bud and mountain laurel, knowing that spring will come as it always has even as you note that the evergreens are there reflecting constancy.

If you are religious, be thankful that you believe in a Higher Power, and that you can turn to Him/Her to express both your sorrow and your happiness.

Be thankful for the successes of your past, both small and large, and commit to finding ways, both small and large, to continue to be a good person, a good man, a good woman.

You might say who are you, Vivian, to be telling us anything on this Thanksgiving Day? I can because I know about an absent father working 500 miles away, a Thanksgiving Day meal with persons intoxicated at the table and a Christmas with nothing under the tree except the bed socks my grandmother had crocheted and the sacks of treats provided by the Central Baptist Church and the UMWA.

Life is harsh and defeats us or we find the strength to prepare ourselves for the next challenge.

Several years ago my sister had shirts made for me, our sister Marilyn who died this year, and herself. The inscription read “This Bowling Woman Can Do It.”

How many times have you heard the wise sage in the movie, the television show or the cartoon say, “Choose wisely.”

To survive, to help others survive, to find joy in what is possible: that is the path I choose.