EMPIRE — Melanie and Bruce Kupfer are thankful for the basics this year.

When they sit down to a turkey dinner provided by the Umpqua Bank, they’ll likely say thanks for togetherness, a roof over their heads, the love of friends and family, their faith and their health.

All these things have become truly precious for the Empire couple after nearly a year of turmoil, debt, health complications and separation.

“You don’t know what the future will be, so you learn to be thankful for what you have,” Bruce Kupfer said.

Life had been stable for the couple until October 2008, when Bruce, a self-employed contractor with no medical insurance, fell 12 feet from a ladder and injured his left foot.

“I fell down and went boom,” Bruce joked at the couple’s home Monday.

The 52-year-old described the injury as just a broken bone, but there were complications. Bruce has diabetes and his foot became infected. He needed three operations and was out of work for eight months.

Meanwhile, Melanie, a five-year breast cancer survivor, decided to get breast reconstruction surgery that December. Following the surgery, doctors discovered the cancer had returned. This news, plus her husband’s injury, stressed out Melanie so much that her body wouldn’t heal from the earlier operation. She couldn’t undergo chemotherapy until she got better.

Eventually, she had to go under the knife again to move the process forward. Between the two, Bruce and Melanie have had eight surgeries in the past year.

“So while he’s having his surgeries, I was having mine,” Melanie recalled.

With this wave of medical problems, the couple could barely work and were inundated by bills. Melanie had a nervous breakdown.

“We couldn’t even take care of ourselves,” Melanie said as her eyes teared up. “It’s hard to support each other when you’re so down.”

Bruce said he would often begin the day by going through a mental checklist of what he had going for him — food in the fridge, gas in the car, power in the house.

Friends and members of their church — Skyline Baptist Church in North Bend — soon recognized the family’s needs. They gave gifts of money and food. Some paid bills for them and the church paid $1,100 toward one of Bruce’s foot surgeries.

“You just can’t find friends like that,” Melanie said. 

Then, hoping to work with a specialist to cure her cancer, Melanie made a hard decision and moved with her 12-year-old daughter to Portland to live with her parents. For nearly six months, she was separated from her husband of 27 years. Because of their finances they couldn’t see each other more than twice a month. Melanie came home in September, mostly healed and ready to return to her life.

With all that has befallen them, the Kupfers said they can’t help but wonder what message God was trying to send them.

“Obviously you don’t get a phone call from heaven,” Bruce said.

They believe that God’s message to them and others is that they don’t need so many material things to be happy, and to trust in their faith. Bruce said that many times when a bill came due or some utility was about to be shut off, a check or cash would show up in the mail.

“There’s no other way I can explain how my needs were provided for,” Bruce said.

Maybe it’s just good friends, such as Donna Rayburn, who once paid for Melanie’s car insurance.

“They’ve always reached out to other people, it was their turn to receive some of that love and caring back,” Rayburn said. “She’s my best friend. I’d do anything for her. I almost lost her once and the thought of losing her again just devastated me.”

The Kupfers said they’re grateful for all they’ve been given. While they’re still reeling from the past year, they said their health has greatly improved and life no longer resembles a lightless hole.

“We’d probably be homeless, or certainly not in this home,” he said.

Melanie agreed.

“There just aren’t enough words to say thanks for people who help like that.”