We’re thankful for home, for hope, for health, for heroism.

We’re grateful for family, for fellowship, for faith, for freedom.

At a time of war, economic uncertainty, hunger and homelessness, South Sound residents find much to celebrate this Thanksgiving.

Michael Allen says this will be his second best Thanksgiving ever, owing to the kindness of strangers who helped him keep his apartment when eviction was imminent after he lost his job.

At Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, Vicki Kelley keeps vigil at the bedside of husband Curt, who was burned over 51 percent of his body in an industrial accident last week. She is thankful he’s alive.

Susan Carmichael-Hines is “a brilliant woman who raised five kids on her own and is loving life again” after radiation treatment for a rare form of cancer, says her son, Tim Carmichael of Lakewood.

Tacoma Rescue Mission volunteer Bruce Bodine believes in hope, something “you don’t have to buy” and nobody can take away.

The News Tribune asked readers to do some homework this holiday season. Tell us why you’re thankful.

The stories and circumstances varied, but there was a common thread of gratitude for blessings big and small.

Here are some vignettes:

MOM ‘JUST BEAT CANCER’

Tim Carmichael says his mom “is a wonderful woman who puts everybody first.”

So when doctors diagnosed Susan Carmichael-Hines with an unusual cervical cancer, Tim and one of his sisters, Kristen Nieto, drove her to the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance for treatment. Every day for six weeks.

It was something they could do to help.

“She was going through the radiation. All we did was drive her up.”

The mother of five sees it differently.

Tim, 32, and Kristen, 35, traded off chauffeur duties, but both made the trip with mom each day. She got to know them better. They talked and laughed together, she says.

Her other children, Gina Campbell, 37, Nick, 29, and Cynthia, 26, gave support and succor in other ways.

“When I got sick, I just didn’t have to do anything,” she says. “They took over.”

Today, Kristen is cooking. The eclectic menu will reflect many ethnic backgrounds, including Latino, Korean and African American. Turkey and stuffing, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, greens and family favorite soda cracker pie will load the table.

Tim says he’s thankful his mom “just beat cancer.”

Susan says she thinks her son is optimistic; she must go for an assessment in January. But she feels good; her strength is returning.

“Cancer can bring you to your knees,” Tim wrote. “But she fought it the whole time with a smile.”

‘I AM THANKFUL FOR HOPE’

Bruce Bodine of Lakewood and wife Debbie own their own business. At 52, with three children grown, he has time to volunteer. So he does. At the Tacoma Rescue Mission, at his church, Life Center and its ministries.

Family, faith and helping imbue his life with richness and texture, he says. He wants others to know “the secret of how good you feel when you volunteer.”

Sometimes people think charity of self is building a porch or putting in a hot water tank or fixing a roof for a widow, he says. But it’s really about hope.

It puts smiles on faces. It lifts people. It helps someone who’s been pummeled by disaster and despair cling “to the last little knot” in life’s rope, Bodine says.

At Thanksgiving, he wants people to think about the steadfastness of hope.

“You don’t have to buy hope.” he says. “Nobody can steal hope away from you. You can give it away all day long and still have a bucketful of hope.”

“Especially in 2009, a lot of those material things aren’t as important,” he said. “Hope shines a little brighter, because you have to rely on it.”

‘HE IS ALIVE’

Curt Kelley is sedated. A ventilator helps him breathe. He endured surgery Tuesday on his severely burned body. He may lose his left hand.

At Harborview, Vicki Kelley constantly answers two cell phones as family, friends and Atlas Foundry co-workers call with words of care and compassion.

Curt, 48, fell into a mold of molten metal a week ago, Vicki’s mom, Kathy Cornelius, wrote to The News Tribune.

He’d gone to work an hour early because he loves the job he’s held since 2006, Vicki said Tuesday. Suddenly, he was gravely injured, burned from the waist down and en route to Harborview.

Through the trauma, Vicki focuses on recovery, not tissue destruction. The Northwest Burn Foundation is providing her with emergency housing in Seattle.

Today, daughters Kateisha, 17, Ciara, 16, and Savanna, 6, will spend the holiday with family.

Vicki will be bedside.

Their holiday happening – a big day of turkey and 20 people – won’t occur.

People understand. Friends, co-workers, the foundry’s managers offer anything Vicki and the family need.

“Whatever you want, we’ll get for you,” they tell her.

“But what I need and want, they can’t give me,” she says. “That’s my husband home.”

He may be at Harborview for a couple of months and a long recovery looms.

Vicki, grateful for “awesome” doctors, nurses and emergency workers, will give thanks today for this: “He is alive.”

A COMMUNITY OF HELP

He has no bed, dresser, book shelf or even a chair. Not “a lick of furniture.” But what 46-year-old Michael Allen does have, he says gratefully, “is a place to go to at the end of the day and feel at home out of the wind and the rain.”

Jobless, broke and four days from eviction, Allen did a lot of praying. Miraculously, he believes, he “came across a flier” that would lead to his rescue. Phoenix Housing Network, a program of Catholic Community Services, provided rent money to keep him sheltered.

He now has a line on a job as a cook at Tacoma General Hospital.

Allen didn’t intend to make Tacoma his home when he passed through 11 years ago, he wrote, “but this small town grew on me.”

“I cannot say without tears how thankful I am for this community,” his letter said. “For me, this is the second best Thanksgiving I’ve ever had.” The first was an over the river and through the woods trip to visit his ailing grandmother.

Today, he hopes to help out at the Tacoma Rescue Mission and share a meal with others in need.

THE STRANGER WAS HER SON

Betty Richardson, an 84-year-old widow from Eatonville, opened her door several weeks ago to find a stranger standing there. She thought he looked familiar. She soon realized why.

“Incredibly, it was my only child, my son,” she wrote. “We had been estranged for 17 years.”

Mother and son, John Revel of Lacey, “had not talked or anything,” she said in an interview. Her husband of 47 years, Phil Richardson, died in April 2008.

A painter of dog portraits, quilter and seamstress of her own clothes, Betty Richardson describes herself as “a very busy lady.”

But she was alone.

John inherited her stubborn nature, she said, but “fortunately, he relented.”

She didn’t want to share the reason for the estrangement, saying only it was a “big thing,” not a small one.

That’s over now.

“I am just so thankful that he was smarter than his mother,” she says of her son, who will be 66 on Christmas Eve.

When she sits down to dinner with him, his wife, children and his grandson today, her thoughts will be these: “You can be sure I am thanking God for a family of my own.”

Kris Sherman: 253-597-8659

Kris.sherman@thenewstribune.com