Despite it all, it’s a pretty damned wonderful life:

A few years later, we sold for a surprising profit and moved to a bigger house. Leverage, they call it – and we caught on fast – moving every few years to accommodate our growing family (eventually 12) and business, but also to maximize our investment. In some ways we lived modestly: Our most expensive car was a used 15-passenger van, we rarely took vacations, and I cut our sons’ hair (saving us some $20,000). But in other ways, our life was extravagant as we tried to give back what had been so graciously given to us by adopting kids with special needs.

Still, the bottom line is that we didn’t save for a rainy day. When we lost our home in July, we accepted the death of our dream and soldiered on.

We didn’t know the worst was yet to come. Grabbing the silver lining of our reduced costs, we scheduled Tripp’s overdue knee-replacement surgery, budgeting for a month’s recovery. But a complication resulted in four more surgeries for him and intensive solo parenting for me. Had I really thought losing a house was the worst thing that could happen?

Like George Bailey, whose resigned acceptance of the death of his dream was followed by a disaster that spelled his final ruin, I felt my world turn dark and cold, my heart heavy, my outlook hopeless.

But while no angel such as Clarence materialized – I didn’t jump off a bridge, after all – our family did experience the second Bailey miracle. In just the past few weeks, friends, acquaintances, and even complete strangers have rallied to help us in ways we can see and taste and hear and feel. Sixty-two years after George Bailey’s Christmas bailout, I find myself, like him, astonished and humbled and changed. For beyond what our family lost this year, there was so much we gained.

The events of 2008 have tended to define “bailout” as the government raiding the public piggy bank to prop up bloated and beleaguered corporations. But we must not forget the truer, more beautiful form: the Bailey bailout, in which everyday people reach deep into not-so-deep pockets to help someone who thought he could do it on his own, someone who would never have thought to ask.

It’s telling that Bailey’s bailout comes at Christmas, when we remember God sending His son to be born – the beginning of the greatest bailout of all.

I’ve always relied on the kindness of neighbors.

Related: Extinctions open the way for diversity, innovation

“This confirmed that 470 million years ago these enormous meteorites fell in a wide span of locations across the globe – including Scotland.

“This is the first time we have been able to prove the mammoth scale of the event and just how many geographical locations felt its impact.”

The scientist added: “Our research has also pinpointed that the meteorites falling caused earthquakes and tidal waves to take place at the edge of many continents.

“Records show that the underwater life which existed on earth at this time became a lot more diverse directly after this major event. Any connection between these occurrences is not clear, but our findings will help us to investigate and potentially pinpoint how it happened.”

Tell it to the Feds.