Life is looking pretty grim right now.

We’re at war. Practically every aspect of our economy is tanking. People are losing jobs.

Businesses are closing. Half of our state burned up and the other half has no water. And now the fog has set in. Great.

It’s enough to make you duck under the covers and not come out until spring.

Or we can try to be grownups and face every day as it comes, neither lamenting the past nor dreading the future. (I think that’s harder than the covers option, but maybe that’s just me.)

I met a few folks over the last year who know more than they ever wanted to about that kind of perseverance.

So on this Thanksgiving eve I wondered, what were they thankful for?

Family was top of mind for everyone.

For Donna Weeks, family has been both trying and uplifting as she has dealt with her mother’s Alzheimer’s  and father’s increasing frailty.

Lee and Louie Tessandori were as independent as they came and Louie was the classic cantankerous Italian patriarch, always in control.

So daughter Donna had no idea what to do when she saw her parents begin at first a slow descent and then an all-out free fall into dementia and total dependence. Lee is now in an Alzheimer’s home in Shafter and Louie is in assisted living right down the block.

Their financial affairs are in order and they’re both safe and well cared for.

But the path to that relative security was rocky.

Through it all, Donna told me, her greatest delight was how her son, Gilbert Tessandori, stepped up to help. He sold everything he had in Arkansas and moved back to Bakersfield to live with his grandparents and take care of all their big and small needs.

“He’s been amazing,” Donna said with a proud smile. “I’m just so thankful for him.”

•••

Family was No. 1 on Sally Zapata’s list of things to be thankful for as well.

“And for the people God puts in my path,” she said.

Sally is fighting to get her son, Martin Zapata, 28, a quadriplegic, reliable transportation to and from his doctor’s appointments.

Sally called me several weeks ago at her wits end after Hall Ambulance Service stopped transporting Martin and she couldn’t find any other service that would take a bed-ridden patient.

After the Zapatas’ story ran, many people called with offers to help and Sally is confident now that she’ll find a solution.

“In this community we need to help each other,” she said.

•••

If any one thing had been different for Tom Gutcher after a car accident left him with a severe brain injury six months ago, he likely wouldn’t be doing as well as he is today. He’s back at work half time, living at home and only going to rehab three hours a day.

And for the series of events that got him there, his wife, Linda Gutcher, is extremely thankful.

“No one’s lucky to go through something like that,” she told me.

But because Tom rode with his daughter in an ambulance to Kern Medical Center after the accident instead of waiting by the car as he initially decided, he was in the right place at the right time when he collapsed as his brain swelled against his skull.

Later, as Tom’s recovery became more reliant on his own and his family’s efforts, Linda (a worrier by nature) said she had to learn to focus on the present.

“If I thought about the past, the accident, it was upsetting,” she said. “Projecting into the future — Would he be able to walk? Talk? Ever go back to work? Would his personality change? — was also upsetting, extremely upsetting.”

Instead, she decided to focus on each day.

“Every day that something bad didn’t happen was a good day.”

Tom, a jokester by nature, said he was first thankful his daughters came out of the accident OK and second that he was alive to enjoy his family, a host of dear, dear friends and his boxer, Belle.

“We’re going to eat well and eat far too much,” he said of Thanksgiving Day.

Given the uncertainty of life even in the best of times, that sounds like a pretty good plan.

Opinions expressed in this column are those of Lois Henry, not The Bakersfield Californian. Her  column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. Comment at people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/noholdsbarred, call her at 395-7373 or e-mail lhenry@bakersfield.com