It's a Wonderful Life

It's a Wonderful Life

by Michelle Carr Crowe

Entry for the ActiveRain Contest

One of my favorite movies of all time is, "It's a Wonderful Life." Our family traditionally watches in on Christmas Eve. Sometimes we even go watch it at the Stanford Theatre in Palo Alto, which hosts a special showing of the 1946 classic film starring Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed every Christmas Eve-and sells out fast every year.

I identify with the main character, George Bailey, who, against his will, is repeatedly drawn away from his original dreams of travel and adventure into his father's building in loan business. Only in my case it's my mother's real estate business.

It seems every time George is about to be free to experience the life he's dreamed of, a crisis occurs that forces him back to his father's business: his father's stroke, father's death, even his own honeymoon (and traveling money) end up going back in the business to stave off the banking crisis of 1929. 

If you've never seen the movie, it's about George Bailey, a man facing financial ruin and a moral crisis: George realizes he is worth more money to his family if he was dead than alive, then wishes he'd never been born. His flighty guardian angel-in-training Clarence grants his wish and George comes to realize many of his "small" actions made a huge difference in the lives of many people in his town.

George realizes his love for his family and life is worth the pain, and begs God to "let me live again," even though it means  facing "bankruptcy, jail and scandal" to be reunited with his family. The people he helped all chip in to head off the financial disaster.

"Is it too much to ask for the people who do most of the working and living in this town to own a decent home with 2 rooms and a bath? My father didn't think so. People were human beings to him...," George Bailey replies to the town's evil miser, Mr. Potter.

George, and I, learned through the pain, strugges and sorrows, he actually had "a wonderful life." His brother toasts him as, "The richest man in town." The movie ends with the encouraging thought, ""No man is a failure who has friends."

I saw what an all-consuming business real estate can be first-hand. I felt the heavy responsibility of helping people make life-changing decisions on what home and neighborhood to invest their life savings in. Helping people through the savings and loan crisis and defaults, short sales and foreclosures of that time to the necessary creative financing and balloon payments and interest rates of up to 23 percent-I knew real estate is a crazy life!

Many times she needed me to be the one to help her: during the savings and loan crisis, when my parents divorced, when she was under siege from the IRS, and most especially when she was diagnosed with cancer, then later passed away.

Now I understand it's not just a crazy life, it's a wonderful life.