When Sarah Seidel's parents died within a year of each other, she abandoned her dreams because of a promise she'd made to her father.

Her name, understandably, is unfamiliar. She's not powerful or rich or famous. And yet, if you've ever shopped at the Fred Meyer store on Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard, you've seen Seidel. She's the clerk behind the meat counter, the one who calls everyone "darlin' and 'honey".

"People ask for her by name," said store manager Ryan Malen. "If she has the day off, customers are disappointed."

She has been working at the store for 13 years. It isn't where Seidel, now 58, thought she'd end up.

"No, not my original road," she said. "Just the same, it's been a good one."

And so, for Thanksgiving, a story of gratitude and grace.

***

Seidel was raised Rhinelander, a small Wisconsin town about 250 miles away from Milwaukee. Her father did whatever it took to support the family: cutting wood, a bit of roofing, changing tires at the local garage

"I didn't know it as a child," Seidel said, "but we were poor."

What the family had was an abundance of love, kindness and generosity, the very attributes we all attempt to find, hold onto and honor when we gather on Thanksgiving Day.

Lucky neighborhoods have a family like the Seidel clan. The place, be it a house or an apartment, may not be fancy. But it's real and unpretentious. Always an extra seat at the table, a chair in the living room, places where a person can relax a bit before continuing on the journey that is life.

Seidel graduated high school at 17 and married. It didn't last. Her next husband, a military man, had assignments that took the couple across the United States. That gave Seidel time to think about what she wanted to with her life. She wanted a college degree. No matter where the couple moved, Seidel, even while working, saved a bit of money to take a class or two at the local community college.

"I went to lots of schools," she said. "It wasn't easy, but I never forgot my dream."

She ended up in Spokane, where her husband drove a gas tanker. She found work as a customer service agent at a local insurance company, and enrolled in the community college. She hoped to one day be admitted to Washington State University's Spokane campus.

"I wanted to work as a paralegal," she said. "Even crazier, I thought about maybe trying to go to law school. It's always amazed me that a regular person can find work in the law to make a difference in life."

Then her mother died of a massive heart attack.

***

After the services in Wisconsin, Seidel scraped together money she'd planned to use to continue her education and moved her father to Spokane. She found him a place to live and helped him get on his feet financially. The family needed to be together, and Seidel helped her younger brother and sister relocate to Spokane too. Her brother and father decided to start a rebar reinforcing company after finding an investor who joined the partnership.

Then, about a year after her mother died, her father had a heart attack. Doctors determined he needed an immediate triple bypass.

Before the operation, he asked to speak, alone, with Seidel. He said tests had revealed extensive damage. Her father had a sense that his time was limited.

"I think he knew what would happen," Seidel said. "He told me that when he died, he needed me to keep the family together."

Seidel promised.

Not too longer after that, her father was gone.

"We had so little time to grieve my mother's death," Seidel said. "Then my father."

Seidel was in her early 30s.

Her siblings, 24 and 20.

A promise made.

A promise kept.

A dream abandoned.

"I guess you could say," she said, "that I ran out of time."

***

She gathered her brother and sister and promised they'd never have to worry. No matter the future, she'd be there for them.

"We can complain and feel sorry for ourselves," she said. "Or we can be grateful. I had a brother and sister. What more could I want?"

Shelley Lee recalled that her sister took over at what was one of the darkest times in the family's history.

"Criminy dutch," Lee said during a telephone call, remembering those days. "I'm going to cry."

Lee said her sister never wavered. She took care of them emotionally, mentally and financially.

"My sister saved us from the impact of God taking our parents so young," she said. "When I slipped into a depression, Sarah said it was OK to be sad. She'd be the strong one for all of us."

Later, when Lee, then married with two small children, wanted a job in nursing, Seidel paid for her sister to get the schooling required for a certified nursing assistant certification.

"Everything would have fallen to pieces if she hadn't stepped in," Lee said. "She deferred her dreams for everyone else."

Her father's death had put his company at risk of being lost. The company had contracts to fulfill, bills to pay, expectations to meet.

Seidel refused to surrender.

She visited the Spokane Law Library and the library at Gonzaga University's School of Law. She researched contract law and issues surrounding estates following a death and financial obligations owed to a third-party.

"I looked at books and studied case precedents," she said. "I'd see students studying in the library. I'd gently ask if I could interrupt them. I'd explain my problem, and I'd ask if they'd share their knowledge."

Eventually, Seidel crafted a way and a plan, complete with the necessary legal papers to untangle things and to keep the business in the family.

"She's the best big sister a guy could ever have," said Steve Seidel. "She was the stabilizing factor for our family. She took care of everyone so we could go build our lives. She's a wonderful and mysterious soul."

Once she felt her family was doing well, she and her husband left Spokane to move to Vancouver, where she got a better job: She found work at Fred Meyer.

She still likes to spend time in the Clark County Community College library, reading books and sitting among students, but she knows her chance of that college degree has passed.

But her heart, she said, is full.

While she and her husband were unable to have children, she has an extended family that includes spouses and in-laws as well as nieces and nephews. All are pursuing their dreams because they had a foundation built by a woman who gave up hers.

"I'm not sad for what I don't have," Seidel said. "I'm grateful for what I have. Is there any other way to live?"

On Thanksgiving Day, Seidel will be behind the counter.

Stop in and watch her, even from a distance, as she greets everyone with a smile as honest as anything you'll find in the city on a day when people reflect on what matters in a life.

--Tom Hallman Jr.

thallman@oregonian.com; 503 221-8224

@thallmanjr