"George Bailey, I'll love you 'til the day I die."

A friend recently passed along an article titled, Signs of "Life", in a publication entitled, America, The National Catholic Review. It speaks of the similarities that are struck between the famous Christmas Classic, It's A Wonderful Life, and the Gospels. To someone like myself I have professed this for many, many years. Once, in fact, I gave a weekend's worth of sermons about how one can compare his stewardship to this very story! (I think that's when I caught the preaching bug!) Regardless, this film has played a major role in my life, representing Spirits of Pasts, Present and Future! It is the quintessential story of human choice vs. God choice. It is the story of how Destiny and Fate weave their way into our pre-conceived lives, and ultimately the story of unconditional love and fortune. One of my favorite and pivotal lines of the film occurs when George Bailey has wished his life away ... feeling that failure is the bottom line. He tells his Guardian Angel that in fact if he had never been born countless people would have experienced a better existence. Once George is "allowed" to see a life that contains no George Bailey he realizes how horrible in fact those lives are indeed compromised due to his absence. Thus the line, "One man's life touches so many others, when he's not there it leaves an awfully big hole. " I have always felt that line so significant in relating how small or large someone's life seems to be. Because in God's, "big picture", the reality is it really doesn't matter how big and powerful someone is .. it matters only if they are there. This sentiment can only be known by the hole that presents itself when someone we love, admire, look up to, believe in, trust or simply befriend is missing from our existence. Has that ever happened to you? I feel for young Mary Hatch.. she knew from the age of 12 what and whom was to impact her life. She didn't compromise her ideals. And yet she knew how difficult it might be to hang on to such a dream. She whispers into George's "trick ear" as he relates his intentions of heading down his road of Coconut Dreams, and memberships into the National Geographic Explorers Society, that she somehow would spend her days with this fabulous person. She whispered into a "deaf ear"... "George Bailey, I'll love you until the day I die." As he scooped her decadent chocolate and coconut sundae into a fountain glass, calling her "brainless". She persisted throughout her adulthood fighting off local vixens, and her own demons of self-doubt.. "Perhaps, I should marry Sam Wainwright.. he is after all... "the richest man in town." Thinking George will never loosen his grip on the ideal vision of world renowned living, harems, and building GREAT things one day. She waited and waited until one day she snapped.. literally.. snapping her 72" version of Buffalo Gals, and throwing George out of her home, that he reluctantly and angrily came back for his "hat" that she gave it her "all" in her attempt to listen to what God had been steering her toward all along! Was George to build GREAT things?? YES.. they just didn't look like what he thought they might. (much like my favorite religious story.. The Tales of Three Trees.) DID George settle?? Maybe for a second, But only with his own Ego.. never with God. And did she love him 'til the day she died?? YOU BET! She loved him and knew him like no other.. good, bad and the ugly... even on that fate-filled Christmas Eve when Uncle Billy squandered their money, and George went home on a rampage throughout their lovely, restored, old broken down home! She loved her husband come hell or high water. And would help him no matter what! Perhaps it was in her name Mary, that lends the story so much credence. Or the fallen angel making good on his promises that we all like?? Or could it be my other favorite line... "A man is not a failure who has friends." That makes me see the truth in this story. It is truly the acceptance that we are born as normal folk who are here to affect each other. Love each other despite the weakness and perservere through the daily crap that keeps us renewed. Reborn. The holiest day began, and George has left for work picking up the "Merry Christmas Wreath" that Mary asked him to get... the sign of a man who really was happy before asked to recount what had happened to make him question his path. I love that Christmas Eve morning when George is leaving on a very happy note. Awaiting the homecoming of his beloved brother Harry, he leaves his home practically skipping to the Building and Loan before a drunken Uncle Billy confesses to misplacing 8K! Potter realizes that Billy didn't "misplace it" that in fact, he enables and helps something scandalous to try and ruin an innocent life. Despite the horrific conditions that lie ahead of him, I love that he is so concerned with ZuZu's fever/petals in the midst of his personal jeopardy. And, I love the fact that he questions his wife in the kitchen of their home as to how the hell they got here.... and how she just let's him vent. Mary continues to stay on her path of preparing a meal for their family, simultaneously taking care of a miserably worried George, 4 children belching out orders and maintaining her role as the go-to gal! In the end, George would rather have his life, than no life at all.. even if he must go to jail. And yet, his kind deeds throughout his lifetime will not go overlooked. If there was ever a film modeled after unconditional love it is this one. It is truly the Christmas epic that digs deeper holes in our soul each year, ones large enough to bury our wishes much like Mary buries hers in the deaf ear of her beloved George Bailey! Not Sam Wainwright... it is George who is ultimately the richest man in town! Because honestly, George.. it is a wonderful life! And I'll love you 'til the day I die..... Mary