Being George Bailey

Not Mr. Potter

Once again, this Christmas season, we coax out some gentleness, some good news and the Biggest Lesson in Christmas movies ever. This Yule season, the movie, It’s a Wonderful Life, takes on an urgency. It becomes the reminder that life is more than what we see with our eyes. One small decision could change the forever outcome for a LOT of people.

What if I had never been born? What if I was blessed, like George Bailey, to see what life would be like if I was never here in the first place?

Is my presence on earth enough to change the trajectory of some people? Is the world different because I have left MY mark on it?

I am the physical product of all those people who have gone before me. My ancestors. Every one of them, men and women, came together and made another human. I like to think everything that led up to my existence was love, always love. But, I can’t know that for sure. So, the end product of centuries-worth of couplings is human me. It is the creation of life by a man and a woman. If, somewhere along that long line of procreating people, grandma interrupted them by turning on the lights, or a kid jumped into a bed at a certain moment and killed the mood, or grancestor had a headache and declined to procreate, I would not be here. It is divine providence that I exist at all. What a delicate balance of creation. Of procreation. My mom was a 37 year old pregnant woman in 1964. Her doctor urged her to have an abortion because she was ‘of a certain age’. Can you believe it? She had 2 healthy kids, a few miscarriages in the meantime, then I came along. She wasn’t sick, Mom and Dad were not poor and they were happily married. Why would this Dr. suggest an abortion? And, the sick thing is, she kept him around and he was MY doctor when I was a kid. I suppose he delivered me as well, because it is what doctors did back then. They did it all. So, thanks Mom for holding your ground and not aborting me. That guy…what a jerk.

So, if I did not exist, then neither would my 2 children or 7 grandchildren. And, my husband would be a lonely spinster librarian in Pottersville.

There would be a boy from Iowa who maybe would be sitting on a tractor farming, content or not, but missing a certain girl who would never have been born, except for me. And, he would not have 3 children. Or he might, but his trajectory would be far different than the one he is on now.

There would be a girl from Post Falls who would be an RN, or maybe not. She would not have 4 very sweet lovely daughters. And she might not ever know what a wonderful husband she had missed, because he had never been born. Because I hadn’t been born.

I am no George Bailey, where a whole town would be a modern Sodom and Gomorrah if I wasn’t born.

I think Hubs would have found another woman and married her and had totally different children and definitely a totally different life. Did I drive this bus at all, his bus? Let’s just say the Lord used me when I had no idea. A little complaint from me to move decks on a ferry from Gibraltar to Tangiers led us to meet new American friends who absolutely were instrumental in our life journey. You just never know…

I do not know how my parents would have fared if I had never been born. I was the caboose. My brother is 10 years older than me and my sister is 14 years older. Both my grandmothers were strong women of God and prayer was a necessity in their impoverished lives. I never knew either grandfather. But, when my parents and I were in the car and we would pass a certain quaint church with stained glass windows and a steeple, I would always ask “does God live in there?” from the time I could speak. That was the nudge they needed to re-think their lives and come back to serving the Lord in 1970. My nagging drove them into the arms of God once again. Nagging can do great things.

My path has been winding and varied. I have lived in many places and talked to many people. Have I touched someone that might not have been touched otherwise? Did I make a difference to anyone? Will the world be a better place because I have been in it? I can’t even begin to answer that question.

I can think back to one friend in particular who told Hubs and I that we were an inspiration to him and he thought of us often and we had really touched his life. And we had NO clue we were making a difference in a life. We were just us…but in the process we made a huge impression upon him. He is now in heaven, gone too early. But, he made sure to tell us this a few years before he was taken. I think we both were in shock. We didn’t act any particular way around him or even know that we were making an impression, but we were. If I take one thing away from that, it is that someone is always watching. Looking. Comparing. Seeing. Hearing. And..we do the same thing to others. So, I make sure now that I let people know how they have touched me. I tell them the good stuff I have learned, been impressed with or seen in their lives. Just like Kris told us.

So, absent a visit from Clarence, I will be happy knowing that my life has worked out just as God planned. May the Mr. Potters of this world come to nothing and the George Baileys be blessed beyond measure, by God, by good friends, by children and grandchildren. And, may they bless all who come into contact with them, knowing or unknowing. Because, it really is a wonderful life.