By Tom O'Neill
and Mike Pulfer
The Cincinnati Enquirer

The Rev. Donald Jordan is thankful for "life itself. I was going to die. I thought it was over." (Craig Ruttle photo) | ZOOM |

Family, faith and framing your heart around those of others. The rest is just window-dressing.

This is the Rev. Donald Jordan's Thanksgiving Day reflection on the things for which he is thankful.

"Life itself," he said Wednesday. "I did feel I was going to die. I thought it was over. The doctors hadn't given me a good prognosis."

Five years ago, he stood before his Allen Temple AME Church congregation in Roselawn and gave what amounted to an "I'm dying" sermon. Now the 70-year-old said the prostate cancer that threatened his life is in remission and he's embracing plans for a new church home.

The Rev. Mr. Jordan joins Greater Cincinnatians who this Thanksgiving are grateful for so much more than turkey and football. Other stories of thanksgiving came from responses to an Enquirer request for tales of heartfelt ways of saying thanks. They reveal a Covington woman who used her oven and a favorite pie to say thanks; an eighth-grader in Harrison who used his energy and time, and an Indian Hill woman who formed a support group for fellow moms of military personnel.

One of the people in the packed Allen Temple Church that Sunday morning in 1997 was the Rev. Donald Jordan's sister, Charma. On Wednesday, the reverend spoke of his own life and death, then drove to Middletown, where his sister, now 77, is hospitalized in critical condition, having suffered a recent stroke.

The prognosis isn't good. But he's heard that before.

Grateful for transplant

Peggy Conlon Lane organized fund-raisers after a niece received a heart transplant. (Brandi Stafford photo) | ZOOM |

Peggy Conlon Lane of Anderson Township organized fund-raisers and mailed cash to an organ-transplant network after a new heart saved the life of a niece in Orlando.

"One of my older brothers, Mike (Conlon) lost his 15-year-old son to heart disease on Thanksgiving weekend in 1987," she said. "Last month, my niece Michiko (Conlon, another of Mike's children) was blessed with a heart transplant.

"I am so very thankful that this has happened to her," she said. "She's got a long road ahead of her, but she's got a road. ... I made a donation in her name" to the National Transplant Assistance Fund, Mrs. Conlon Lane wrote.

A military parent's ally

Deborah Eckert of Indian Hill started a support group for people with family members in the military. A picture of her son is in the background. (Brandi Stafford photo) | ZOOM |

Deborah Eckert of Indian Hill is thankful this holiday because she knows her Navy son's six-month deployment to the Persian Gulf and northern Arabian Sea is over.

Chad Adler is back in Jacksonville, Fla., having served on a dangerous assignment to inspect ships.

"I'm thankful he came back," she said from Jewish Family Services in Blue Ash, where she is a social worker. "Like every other parent, I'm worried we're heading for war."

Knowing that a military parent's best ally can be another military parent, she began a support group, with meetings held every second Wednesday of the month. Membership, she said, has dwindled since the first wave of six-month deployments ended. She believes families of those currently deployed might not know of the organization, and welcomes families to call her at 469-1188, ext. 103.

Ms. Eckert has become accustomed to the life of a military man's mom. Chad was recently accepted in an officer-training program for enlisted personnel.

A positive holiday

Saying thanks - through words or deeds - is an important gesture, behavior experts say.

"Holidays are great for some people; lousy for others," says Susan Eppley, a psychologist in East Walnut Hills. "Saying thanks is the one ritual in the course of the year where we really honor the positive, and I can't think of any other time when we sit down and do that publicly.

"There's always been a lot of negative in our lives, and since 9-11, those things become more important," she said. "We overlook it every day."

Larry Taylor, of Monfort Heights, sent a contribution to the World War II Memorial Fund "to honor and say thanks to my Uncle Pete Dye. He was a gunner/driver in the European Theater during 1941-1945."

Charles Sheley, a Harrison Junior School eighth-grader, said thanks to his grandmother, "but I did not think that was good enough. So I went out and cut her grass. ... She said, `Thank you.' I then said, `No. Thank you, ma'am.' Then I thanked her for allowing me to cut her grass and getting my exercise."

The genesis of all his thanking?

"I was craving juicy turkey, and my grandmother went out and bought me one," Charles said.

A wallet returned

After leaving her wallet on the roof of her car, Covington's Ginny Howard owed a big thank-you to the man who found it in a highway intersection and called her. So she headed to her kitchen.

"I have this recipe for this wonderful Texas tornado cake, which is more sinful and rich than you can imagine," she said.

"He was so appreciative and, of course, expected nothing in return. ... It certainly has made me think and feel differently about how wonderful and honest strangers can be."

A lifetime of paying back

Estelle Riley's volunteer efforts include raising money for women's services and child protection. (Gary Landers photo) | ZOOM |

Estelle Riley, 52, an executive assistant at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, remembers growing up poor in the projects of Winton Terrace in the 1960s.

She remembers the night - she thinks she was 15 - when parochial high school students and volunteers from St. Vincent de Paul Society "paraded" through her family's modest living room to give them a Christmas.

"I was stunned," she said. "I'm talking Christmas tree, decorations, turkey, cranberry sauce, the entire meal, holiday candy and a present for each child."

There were seven kids in the Riley house, all being raised by their single mother.

St. Vincent de Paul returned to the house several times, with groceries, a television and expressions of support. But it's the Christmastime gesture that sticks with her.

"It was just a wonderful, wonderful gift," she said. "It was a gift from the heart. ... There was no shame involved ...

"This single act of kindness on that brisk winter evening ... has led me on a journey of repayment ever since," she said. "I learned early in life the value of giving back to the community."

As an adult, she has raised money for women's services and child protection and organized activities and events at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, where she has worked for nearly 20 years.

"I started volunteering, at first, with the little things," she said, "like a canned food drive. I thought, `I don't have any money, but at least I can do that.' "

Later, she became a co-founder of MUSE Cincinnati Women's Choir and Kate & Co. productions, which focused on women's music and art in the late 1980s and 1990s.

She served as a director of the gay rights organization Stonewall Cincinnati, and, at Children's, as a member of the diversity council and employee activities committee. She worked with Dr. Beatrice Lampkin to establish Glad House, a Bond Hill facility for children of drug- and alcohol-dependent parents. It opened in 1998.

"I was working for people who don't have a voice," Ms. Riley said, "giving them one. ...

"I believe that it is in giving back in whatever way we can that our lives are greatly enriched."

E-mail toneill@enquirer.com and mpulfer@enquirer.com