There were a couple of empty seats at the Thanksgiving table on Thursday, which was spent in Raleigh at my mother’s assisted living facility, where the food and wine were good and the company, modest in number, rose to the occasion. I had enjoyed a few Thanksgivings before without my brother Doug, but I am certain this is the first one out of 66 that my father was not seated at the head of the table.

He was missed, although his presence felt as he was honored with many shared memories.

A Douglas Thanksgiving has traditionally included turkey of course, but my father would cook a prime rib on the grill, and my mother’s oyster dressing typically dominated my plate where yams, beets and collards are not invited. I opted for prime rib, and while it was good, it was not the same, and there were no oysters in the dressing.

Thanksgiving also was not the same, and I know it will never be again.

I know I have much to be thankful for, but remembering that during late autumn of one’s life, for me at least, requires contemplation. The older I get the healthier I am for my age, I work because I want to not because I need to, I have a wonderful extended family, many great friends, I can play golf every day if that is my desire, and there is nothing in my life that I must do, only what I choose to do.

So, a pretty good gig.

But here is the best part and it is true for you as well: I am alive, living in the best country in the history of the world, and at the best time to be alive. Well, relatively speaking, as the 70s, the parts I recall, were a blast even if we did not have cell phones.

You should get the point, which is: Your presence here means you have already hit life’s lottery.

To put a heavier underline under this point, I will defer to Neil deGrasse Tyson, whose resume, which includes astrophysicist, scientist, and author, is unlike mine although I did write two books about a cat named Boots.

I stumbled over a short video clip a couple of days ago in which Tyson explains the odds of you – or me – being born. Math was my best and favorite subject, so I understood it easily, but Tyson dumbed it down enough that even English majors could understand.

You can Google for yourself or depend on me to explain why you have beaten long odds.

According to Tyson, in all of Earth’s history, about 100 billion humans, give or take a few, have walked the Earth. About 8 billion of them are alive now, putting the odds of you being one of them at about 12.5 percent, so 87.5 percent of all humans are already dead.

Here is where the math gets a bit harder, but some perspective might be helpful. You want to know the difference between 1 million seconds, 1 billion seconds and 1 trillion seconds. A million seconds is about 12 days, a billion seconds is 31 years and a trillion seconds is 31,666 years, So, the differences are more than a B, M and Tr.

Here is where the math gets hard, even for someone who made A’s in Mrs. Hunnings’ calculus and physics classes. According to Tyson, the number of people who “could have been born,” is “astronomically large.” He calculated it 10 to the 30th power or a billion times a trillion times a trillion.

So, a lot.

Now if your brain did not explode, the take home is much simpler: The odds of you being alive are so small that they are incalculable, and for you to be living in this country at a time of such wealth and so many conveniences, are even longer, making you lucky in a way that simply cannot be measured.

Be thankful this Thanksgiving.

I am.