When Nancy McGee set up a Swap and Sell Facebook page for her hometown nearly four years ago, she figured it would be a good way to reuse and recycle things among a circle of trusted friends and neighbors.

She joined thousands of other communities where the local Buy, Swap and Sell Facebook page has become the never-ending garage sale. Millions of people trade, buy and sell on these sites across the world. In Kirkwood, a suburb of St. Louis, the page has also morphed into a coffee klatch, a community bulletin board and a hub for social activism.

More than a dozen lost dogs have been found through the page. Readers have also retrieved lost backpacks stuffed with missing homework assignments. Someone offered to lend a neighbor a pair of cowboy boots for their child's school production of "Oklahoma!"

Beyond sharing and selling among themselves, Kirkwood residents have also collected countless bags of clothing and shoes to donate to the homeless. Hundreds of dollars have been raised for local causes.

"It became more than getting rid of an old sweater," McGee said. "There's a back-in-the-day community kind of sharing, lending and helping one another in this new digital way."

It goes beyond the virtual connection the Internet does so well. That sense of community spills into real life.

It gave Christina Ramirez, 40, a renewed appreciation for what it means to feel at home in your community.

After about 11 happy years in Kirkwood, she and her family moved further west to Washington, Missouri, three years ago after her husband was laid off. Her teenage daughter transferred to Union High School and faced racial slurs and harassment frequently, Ramirez said. They called her "wetback" and asked her where her green card was.

"I was never exposed to anything like that in my whole entire life," Ramirez said. Her daughter was crying all the time, having migraines and refusing to go to school. When Ramirez took her to the doctor, he advised her family to move back to Kirkwood. A year and a half later, they did.

Wanting to give back to a community she now appreciated more than ever, Ramirez connected with a local church that helps the homeless, which had long been her family's mission. She joined the Kirkwood Swap and Sell page and posted a request for donations for the homeless.

"It was just phenomenal," she said. "I've never seen a community join together like this." There was such a steady stream of donations dropped off at her home that items started accumulating on the front yard. One neighbor complained about the eyesore, and another started a GoFundMe page to buy the Ramirezes a shed. They raised $730.

The shed continues to fill up regularly, and Ramirez finds places to deliver the goods just as quickly. Local pastor Felix Gibson comes and picks up donations every Wednesday, for distribution to the homeless on Saturdays.

Swap and Sell members have donated time, as well: Two Kirkwood moms joined Ramirez and her family on Thanksgiving at a church in north St. Louis to help serve food and distribute donations.

Page founder McGee, who owns a local clothing shop, says the online group grew to more than 3,000 people, so she added three more administrators to help run it.

People think it's a company, she said. Some have messaged her wanting to contact customer service, "but it's not like our job," she laughed. The administrators do it for free, on their own time.

Ramirez, who volunteers more than 40 hours a week coordinating pickups, drop-offs and distribution to various charities, understands that spirit.

She's used the page to collect toys for children from needy families for Christmas, leftover Halloween candy to share with those in shelters, and books and stuffed animals for inner-city students. She takes clothes for children in foster care and household items for families in low-income housing.

"I feel if I don't do my part, I'm letting them down," she said.

She knows what it feels like to be treated like an outsider. And she doesn't take for granted how welcome and trusted she feels in Kirkwood, a mostly white suburb with a history of its own racial divides.

In 1991, Kirkwood annexed Meacham Park, a historic black neighborhood in St. Louis County, impacting the residents there. The issues between Meacham Park and Kirkwood are longstanding, and city leaders have tried to bridge that divide.

And now, a Facebook page has turned into an unlikely place for healing.

I used to prompt my relatives to say what they were thankful for before the Thanksgiving turkey was carved.

Holding the bird hostage for some words of gratitude really embodies the holiday spirit, doesn't it? Understandably, the answers became repetitive by the time we made it around the room. Surprise: Everyone is thankful for family, food, good health, friends and shelter.

Those are the things for which we cannot be thankful enough -- especially when the news is filled with images of refugee families fleeing war and persecution. We should find a moment every day of our lives to feel blessed for having our physical and emotional needs met. Along with finding a sense of purpose, these are fundamental to our understanding of a good life.

A recent New York Times op-ed by Arthur C. Brooks broke down the science of gratitude and why it makes us happier. In it, he suggested we practice gratefulness for "useless" things, as well. It's easy to recognize the Big Blessings, but the truly happy people find ways to be grateful for the insignificant and inconsequential.

When times seem darkest, it might be even more important to recognize and appreciate the little things. These are the things that can get lost in the midst of larger despair.

I took his advice to heart.

Instead of trying to extort gratitude at a contrived moment, I asked my children and husband to share the small, weird things they appreciate in their lives. Their answers were amusing, but also revealed something deeper about what they value.

My 10-year-old son said he was thankful for gravity because "we would be on the ceiling right now without it, and it would be really uncomfortable." He mentioned planet Earth, heaters, comforters and a cozy bed. Clearly, a child who appreciates comfort.

He's also grateful for batteries -- the lifeblood to his video games -- and for the comics, specifically "Pearls Before Swine" and "Mark Trail." That the daily newspaper is a morning ritual for him is a large joy for me.

His 13-year-old sister rattled off a surprisingly long list, considering that she has that teenage air of chronic dissatisfaction about her so often.

She mentioned ponytail holders, the band Twenty One Pilots, phone chargers, digital clocks, Sharpies that are better for drawing than regular markers, gelatin-free marshmallows and the unicorn emoji. "It's aesthetically pleasing," she explained. I know she's also rather fond of snarky Internet memes.

She added that she's grateful for words in the English language that sound funny, like "disgruntled." To hear her include words among the things she's grateful for provoked an even greater sense of gratitude in me.

I didn't think my husband of 15 years would note anything surprising to me, since we know one another pretty well by this point.

I could have guessed that imported loose tea and turntables (for his hundreds of LPs) would be on his list. But I didn't expect to hear that he was grateful for credit card machines at the gas pump and online banking. I'm starting to see the genetic connection to our child who appreciates convenience.

He added that he's at the age where he's thankful for "oldies" radio station, because they play songs from the '70s -- the music of his youth.

Good thing I'm much younger, I thought. (Not that much.)

My own list may have also been predictable. I'm grateful for GPS apps, so I'm lost less often. I appreciate that yoga pants have become acceptable to wear just about anywhere.

The mild fall temperatures and vibrant fall colors make me unreasonably happy.

I also have a fondness for emojis, the hearts and hearts-as-eyes smiley face, in particular. They add an element of warmth to the cold brevity of shorthand communication.

Speaking of phones, I'm grateful for grandfather clauses on unlimited data plans.

I'd be lying if I left off my hometown Cardinals.

Every day, I'm grateful for the prose of the writers I've read.

Whenever I sit down to write, I'm infinitely grateful for readers.

I realized from the commonalities in our lists that convenience is time saved. We appreciate technology that aids connection and communication.

We need music, art, words, entertainment to feel fully engaged.

Sometime in the next few weeks, find a moment to ask yourself and your loved ones about the unconventional things you're all grateful for. See if you learn anything new about each other.

You might find that the small things aren't so inconsequential after all.

A girlfriend gave birth last week to a healthy, 9-pound baby boy. In the process of getting an epidural to numb the pain of labor, she ended up with such excruciating spinal headaches that she was unable to rise from her bed to care for her newborn.

The chances of this happening -- namely, leakage of spinal fluid from the dura, resulting in severe headaches -- are only about 1 in 200. But when you are the one suffering, statistics are irrelevant.

She said she cried, she prayed, she bargained with God to relieve the blinding headaches. She had moments when she wondered if she would survive if the pain continued.

Certainly, pain is unavoidable in our lives. It comes in a rainbow of forms: emotional, like the anguish accompanying grief or the ache of loss and sadness; and physical, which can be latent and chronic, or acute and debilitating.

The worst pain can render us helpless and force us into submission. My pain is in my gut, and it comes in crashing waves. Fortunately, the pain does not appear very often; for the most part, I control it with diet and medication. But when it does hit, it can be paralyzing: keeping me up at night, making my hands shake. I focus on breathing until each tidal wave passes. It can be terrifying to have a part of your own body turn against you -- twisting and burning with such force.

Like my friend and me, millions of parents struggle to deal with serious pain while trying to care for their children. The immediate thought that crosses a mother's mind at the first signs of an illness? "I don't have time for this." How can you keep up with a toddler, preschooler or tween when you can't get out of bed?

There is competing advice on how parents should navigate these waters, but the most crucial thing a parent in pain can do is to reach out for help. Let someone else take over the parenting reins when necessary. For the times when pain is immobilizing, there's little choice.

Needing help does not make us bad parents. Being able to accept an outstretched hand helps us recognize the value of our relationships. Our loved ones can provide not only moral and logistical support, but also new perspectives and nudges toward treatment. In the case of the new mother with the throbbing headaches, a friend came to her house and persuaded her to go to an emergency room. A medical procedure helped eliminate her pain within a few days.

Some parents in pain wear a disguise. They manage to go through the necessary motions, without losing their temper, and the child may be clueless as to the lengths taken to create the artificial peace. A part of us whispers that we should keep our lonely sacrifice a secret.

Some pain management sites say that while our instinct is to shelter our children from our pain, we should instead talk about it as honestly as possible. Use simple language, and speak calmly and quietly. Reassure children that it isn't their fault. Relate it to something in their own experience, such as falling off a bike. Tell them you will get better, even if you're not sure when or how.

If there is one thing mothers know, it is our capacity for strength. But through pain, we learn our capacity for humility. And when the pain subsides, it leaves us with a renewed appreciation for health.

Our children will inevitably experience their own hurts. Watching us deal with ours shows them how to handle their own.

I vividly remember my mother's moments of pain. When she was bedridden with asthma, laboring for each breath, I felt an ache in my own lungs. She did not have to say anything for me to recognize her struggle. I could not offer much, except to lie next to her periodically, bring her medicines and ask her if she wanted soup.

It was enough.

Humans -- including parents -- need their pain to be recognized, ideally by someone who cares about the suffering.