Miami Valley residents are a thankful lot — and it seems they often are most thankful in times of great adversity and loss.

When The Dayton Daily News asked readers,”What are you thankful for?”, the response often came from unexpected quarters — people who had recently lost loved ones or faced a severe health challenge.

Kate Cleary of New Carlisle is thankful that she can donate a kidney to her grandmother, Shirley King of Middletown. “I am not ready to lose her,” she said.

Brenda Zimmer Gibson of Kettering wrote about her husband Gene, who died of cancer in June. “I am grateful for 15 years of a love some people never experience for 15 minutes,” she said.

Amber Le Frere of Bellbrook lost her sister to breast cancer this year. In 2002, her mother committed suicide and her brother was murdered. “We have managed to grow stronger through a lot of unusually stressful and tragic events,” she said.

Sonna Tuck of Harrison Twp. has lost her vision, but her husband Harvey is thankful that she still bakes “the best Thanksgiving pies.”

Rich Eckhardt of Beavercreek is thankful to have found the 51-year-old sister in Colorado that he had never known he had, providing him a link, at long last, with the father he had never known.

Many readers are thankful in spite of health challenges that might seem daunting. As Aimee Shannon of Dayton expressed it, “I’m thankful for fibromyalgia and other issues that have helped me to focus on what’s really important in life and for the incredible friends I’ve made due to sharing my illness.”

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Until recently, it seemed likely that this could be Shirley King’s last Thanksgiving. The 73-year-old Middletown grandmother has been in acute renal failure for more than two years. The retired nurse and her husband, Bob, spend four hours a day hooking her up to her dialysis machine at home. “I had hoped to spend retirement traveling and fishing,” she lamented. “But I can’t even get into a pontoon boat because I am too fragile and I tip over too easy.”

Her daughter, Shari Ketchum of Middletown, was a match, but was turned donor as a donor for medical reasons. It seemed that King would have to wait for a match that might never come.

Cleary did not think she could be a donor because of a rare condition, known as malignant hyperthermia, which makes her allergic to a long list of inhalant anesthesia. But the 32-year-old mother of three was not ready to lose the grandmother, who helped to raise her after her parents’ divorce. “It’s just not her time,” she said. This, after all, is the grandmother who routinely drives an hour to attend her grandchildren’s concerts and special events, the grandmother who, despite her illness, remains involved with the lives of her eight children, 24 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. “She has to ride her motorized scooter because it’s hard to breathe,” Cleary said.

On Nov. 15, Cleary got off the phone and called out joyfully, “I’m a match! I’m a match! I’m a match!” Next week, she’ll consult with an anesthesiologist to make sure she can successfully undergo the transplant.

“I am so thankful,” King said. “I’m going to get my life back.”

In their own words

Here are readers’ essays about why they are thankful.

Kate Cleary, New Carlisle: “What is it to be thankful? Most people picture a table full of good food, a house full of friends and family and maybe even football. Merriam-Webster describes thankful as being conscious of a benefit received; well-pleased, even glad. The Bible even describes thankful as being content with what you have no matter what your circumstances are. For me, the greatest thing this year that I could be thankful for is time. People are always wishing for more time — more time in the work day, more time to finish a good book, more time to figure out how to spend more time! This year, my time is being donated to someone else who needs it more than I. These years for her (grandmother) are supposed to be her golden years. Years spent enjoying her retirement and her grandchildren.

“The very first thing that came to mind when the coordinator spoke those words, ‘You’re cross-match was accepted’ was that my grandma will get more time. Time to enjoy, to love, to cook, to shop, to watch her grandchildrens’ games, to go to their lake house on Cumberland River, just more time to live. I could hear her smiling through the phone when I called her and told her.”

Debbie Hildreth: Thankful for finding love again

The Dayton woman wrote about finding another soul mate after losing her first husband, Ralph Wilhelm, in a 1998 car accident: “Somehow my two children and I got through one of the hardest, most devastating times of our lives. My children went off to college, and I experienced the empty nest syndrome. It hit hard because I was here alone. I always said I would never remarry. God had other plans for me. He brought Larry (Hildreth) into my life. Larry is a very thoughtful, loving man. He has not only won my heart but that of my family as well. Larry and I both enjoy laughter and reach the point of tears from laughing so hard. We also love sports, especially the Reds baseball, Ohio State football and UD basketball. We enjoy being together. It can be out on a date, doing the grocery shopping, snuggling on the sofa or out for a ride in the Mustang (He calls me Mustang Sally).Was it possible to have two soul mates in my lifetime? When Larry faced some major health issues, each event brought us much closer. I loved this man. This past August, the woman who said she would never remarry walked down the aisle and said ‘I do.” I was given another chance for happiness with my soul mate. This Thanksgiving I am so thankful God brought Larry into my life.

Brenda Gibson: Thankful for her late husband, Gene

The Kettering woman wrote, “On this Thanksgiving, I am grateful for my husband and the 15 years of marriage we shared. And even though (Gene) died in June, I am grateful for the love, laughter and sheer joy we shared each and every day. I am grateful for the cancer that eventually took his life after a 20-year dance with it. He was given a 50-50 chance of living three years. I met him 18 months into that three years. Cancer taught us to be focused, to be grateful for every moment. It taught us to enjoy every day together, because we never knew how much time we had. But then again, who does? We didn’t waste time on anger or pettiness. Not that we didn’t annoy one another and get angry; we just got over it quickly. We chose to dwell on happiness. Nothing was worth wasting precious time. I am grateful for 15 years of a love some people never experience for 15 minutes. Gene gave me the marriage I dreamed of — and so much more. Some people may think 15 years is a lot of time, but it felt like 15 months. Still, I like to say that we crammed 50 years of love into 15. So when I sit down to Thanksgiving dinner with my relatives, I suspect my plate will be overflowing with more food than I need. But it’s nothing compared to the extraordinary helping of gratitude I will feel in my heart.”

Amber Le Frere: Family resilience amid tragedy

The Bellbrook woman wrote, “My family is not one that you’d find in some perfect sitcom, who say all the right things and always work everything out in 30 minutes, but I appreciate them because they’ve been there with me through a great deal of difficult times. We have managed to grow stronger through a lot of unusually stressful and tragic events; my mother was disabled in a serious car accident when I was just 16. In 2002, my mother committed suicide and my brother was murdered. Both my grandmother and uncle died very suddenly in 2010. And this year, my sister, Dawn, died after her long battle with breast cancer.

“Dawn was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer in 2009. She had been unable to conceive for seven years and then the doctors told her she had gone into early menopause because of the chemo and radiation treatments. The following summer, when she was in remission, she started having weird symptoms and worried the cancer had returned. During an ultrasound of her stomach and digestive system, they discovered she was SEVEN months pregnant! Jackson was born in 2010 and she then had another miracle baby, Luke, 11 months later.

“In 2011 the cancer returned at stage 4 and she was given 6 months to live. It would be easy to be mad at the world or God when considering the difficulties we as a family have endured, but because my family has been through more than anyone else I know, I think we have a very different perspective on life. We do not take each other for granted, and we enjoy every day we have together. This year, we are missing my sister Dawn. We are hugging each other a little tighter, and remembering the amazing person she was, sad that she left us, but thankful for who she was, and how much she blessed this family.”

Harvey Tuck: Thankful for his wife’s inspiration — and “the best pies”

The Harrison Twp. man is thankful for the woman he met in the parking lot of Beth Abraham Synagogue: “Every Thanksgiving I am thankful for the 19-year-old girl named Sonna who picked a 2nd Lieutenant who came from Boston sixty years ago. I am thankful for the two daughters she gave me. I am thankful for the four grandsons they produced. Now as we enter sixty years of marriage, I thank her for the professional and family life that we have had in Dayton, Ohio. Nine years ago, due to macular degeneration, Sonna lost her eye sight. Her grandsons and I are thankful for the best pies she still makes for Thanksgiving. Sonna doesn’t look at what she can’t do. She looks at what she can do. Her vision and inspiration show us all, why we should be thankful for Thanksgiving.”

Rich Eckhardt and Teresa Ahl, long-lost siblings

Eckhardt, 67, of Beavercreek never knew about his father, Wayne Baker, other than that it was a “wartime romance that didn’t work out.” He never heard from his father after he left his mother in 1948. His mother, Vita, remarried Thomas Eckhardt and he had a happy upbringing. “I had two more brothers and a sister,” he said. “My stepfather was my Dad and he never once referred to me as his stepson. We were just one family. That really cushioned the blow.”

From time to time he thought about his birth father and wondered, “Why didn’t he ever call?” Eckhardt was bored one night last year and conducted a Google search under his birth name, Wayne Baker, and found out that Teresa Ahl of Ft. Collins, Colo., had been searching for him for six years through Ancestry.com. “I think you might be my brother,” she wrote after finding her father’s divorce records among her mother’s papers when she died in 2004.

“I was surprised, but also excited,” Ahl recalled. “I had another brother and I knew I had to find him.”

She had given up hope, however, six years after conducting her Ancestry.com search. Then came the Facebook request from a stranger named Rich Eckhardt.

Soon the long-lost brother and sister were talking and emailing regularly and arranged a family reunion in Colorado between Ahl and her husband Brad and Eckhardt and his wife Maryann. “I was very nervous,” Ahl confessed, “but the minute I hugged him, there was this instant connection. We really hit it off, and I love his wife to death.”

Eckhardt found a sense of closure in learning that his father had died from a heart attack in 1964, explaining why he had never heard from him in adult life. “I was only two when my Dad died, and I have no memories of him, either, so that’s something we have in common,” Ahl said. During their reunion the brother and sister visited their father’s grave together.

“It’s a new beginning for us,” Ahl said. “I’ll be thankful for the rest of my life. He’s a great guy, and he’s my brother.”