photo credit by Wikipedia
It’s A Wonderful Life is my favorite Christmas movie. Growing up, I seemed to watch it several times during the holidays. I haven’t seen it though recently in many years.
There are so many true-to-life themes in the movie. The main one being, you never really can know the extent that your life touches others. Another theme is even though our lives may seem ordinary to us, no life is just ordinary. Even if we never achieve what we set out to do, or life goes in a totally different direction that what we planned, our life still matters and can be great and inspiring to others by the course it does take. One of the quotes from the movie is, “every man’s life is important because it touches so many other lives.” Another theme is we don’t appreciate what we have, or truly understand the blessings we have in our life, until they are taken away.
I find it a little more than just coincidence that I’m thinking about this story and its themes this year, after what has been undoubtedly, the hardest year of my life. The last twelve months have not been easy. Cancer and divorce are not easy to face as separate events, and this year they ran parallel for me. Many times during the year, I could not wait until 2009 was over, and I could put this horrible year behind me.
As I have thought more and more about it, I have realized while the year has been hard, it has not been horrible. So many positive things have happened as well. Personally, I have learned many valuable things over the course of the year. One of which, is you are never really alone. There are always family and friends that support you. Because of my illness this year, I found this out to an extent I have never experienced before. I am not certain that without my illness, I would have ever discovered this.
The other night, the closing scene from It’s A Wonderful Life popped into my mind. It is when George sees the inscription in the book from Clarence which says, “remember no man is a failure who has friends.” This past year by itself was difficult. But because of my friends and family, it has been a wonderful year. My children and I are truly blessed. Thank you all.
I wish all my family, friends, and blog readers the happiest of holidays, and much happiness, love, and friendship in 2010. All of us really do, have a wonderful life.
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