It's A(nother) Wonderful Life

"Strange, isn't it? Each man's life touches so many other lives. 

When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?"

Nearly every New Year’s Eve, we watch “It’s A Wonderful Life” with Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed.  We did again this year.  As, I understand, many other families do each Christmas Season.  Released in 1946, “It’s A Wonderful Life” has became a classic in the truest sense of the word — an artistic work of enduring value.  So, what made George Bailey’s life Wonderful?

Two themes grip me in George’s story.  One is the portrayal of a boy, then a young man, than a mature father and husband confronted time after time with the hard choice of doing what was right instead of what was easy; of doing what was good for someone else rather than fulfill his own ambitions.  George Bailey’s choices are rarely pleasant, starting with disobeying Mr. Gower in the drugstore, then sticking by the old Building and Loan after his father’s death, letting his brother Harry pursue his dreams while George is stuck in Bedford Falls, turning down Mr. Potter’s attempt to buy him out.

The other element is the life that George and Mary Bailey build — together.  What makes a marriage work?  Initially, there is that indefinable something that attracts you to this person unlike any other.  You recognize in them a fit for the empty places in your life, strength for your weakness, calmness for your anxiety, someone whose mere presence enlivens you.  But at some point, there has to be more.  There has to be a shared desire to subsume what “I” could accomplish to what “we” will accomplish together.  Often, especially at the beginning, this is nothing more than a vague thought encompassed in the desire to “live happily ever after”.  

One might think it was George who did all the sacrificing.  Mary got her dream - George and the Old Granville House on 320 Sycamore with every room occupied by one of their brood.  But, it was Mary who made a crucial choice on their wedding day to fork over their honeymoon funds to keep the doors of the Building & Loan open.  It was Mary who participated in the house-warming for the Martini’s in Bailey Park and, by implication, so many others that netted very little financial gain for the Building & Loan or the Bailey’s.  It was Mary who by some mysterious insight knew that the heart of her man was a good one.  It was Mary who knew when it was time to tell her children to “pray very hard” and when it was time to take action, too.

My personal dreams were not nearly as well defined as George Bailey’s.  But, like George, there are times when I have felt the frustration of the "drafty old house" and "why did we have to have all these children, anyway" and the inconveniences of the Uncle Billy’s in life.  I have had my moments as a "warped, frustrated young man" whose anger caused the same kind of tearful, “Oh, Daddy” in my children and brought a reproach from my wife and their mother.  In spite of that, my ‘Mary’ has seen something in my heart which I sometimes lose sight of.  She has known when to pray very hard and when to take action.  We have built something special together that I never could have experienced alone.

I may never get out of my Bedford Falls, I will never build that skyscraper, and I will likely continue working with mundane financial software for a number of years yet.  But as I was reminded by more than one response to our Christmas family picture, I have indeed been blessed with a wonderful life. I have a wife and children and grandchildren and friends who are priceless.  I am pretty darn close to being "the richest man in town".