As Christmas draws near many of us will be looking forward to watching the moving movie classic, It's A Wonderful Life.
I want to share the last part of the movie here (scroll down the page for a link)...
For those who haven't seen it--and I would recommend that you see it a.s.a.p.-- I'm going to give you a summary (without giving too many actual details so that it will be as new as possible for people who haven't yet seen it).
The background leading up to this final part is that George Bailey --from the time that he was a little boy-- had dreams about getting away from his hometown of Bedford Falls and doing something "big" with his life. He would come close a few times, but something always got in the way -- usually, in the form of his putting his own dreams aside so that somebody else could have a better life.
Then, his scatterbrained uncle, Billy, managed to lose the money from the building and loan company while he had his mind on bragging up his other nephew, Harry, who had become a war hero.
If the richest (and most amoral) man in town (Old Man Potter) had been a decent person, the money would have never been lost for long. However, he stole the money while George & Harry's bumbling uncle wasn't looking because he had been jealous of the more popular Bailey family for years and wanted to find a way to bring them down.
If he brought them down, he would have been able to take over the town and turn the people into his slaves to live in his ramshackle tenements while working for peanuts in his businesses.
The loss of the money was the straw that broke the camel's back for George.
While he had always turned down the offers of Old Man Potter to buy him out, he came to him begging to do anything just to have a loan of $5000. He even offered his life insurance policy--to which this evil character made the comment that he was worth more dead than alive, putting the idea of suicide into George's troubled mind.
Just as he had before, George put others ahead of his own plans, because--just as he was about to jump off the bridge--he heard a cry for help from a man who had, obviously, fallen into the churning waters of the river and, instead of jumping in to kill himself, George Bailey ended up diving off the bridge to rescue this man.
But the man wasn't really a man but, instead, a goodhearted--but somewhat retarded--angel named Clarence Oddbody who had been trying to earn his wings for ages, but just didn't quite have the know-how to do it. But God had told him that, if he would take on George Bailey and show him what a worthwhile person he was instead of being a failure, He would give him his wings.
When Clarence thought that he had finally convinced George that people would miss him if he committed suicide, he found out that George was now thinking along the lines of how it would have been better for everybody if he hadn't even been born.
That was when Clarence came up with the idea of showing him what the world would be like without him.
He would find that the name of Bedford Falls would be changed to Potterville, and it would no longer be a family-friendly town but, instead, a town where people slaved for Old Man Potter, lived in tenements, and dulled the pain of their existence with strong drink and unwholesome partying.
His mother would be a childless widow whose scatterbrained brother-in-law had, after his brother's death, run the Bailey Building And Loan into the ground and was now living in a mental hospital having lost his mind over doing this. Of course, at that point, Old Man Potter had totally taken over the business and the town, because neither George nor his brother were there to take it over and run it.
Harry, the younger son and war hero, hadn't even grown up, because he had fallen through the ice and drowned while sledding as a child because George hadn't been there to save his life--and, as a consequence, all of the men on board the ship that Harry had saved from an attack had also lost their lives.
Bailey Park--the housing addition where buying a home was made affordable and realistic--didn't even exist. Instead, all that was there was the graveyard that took in the earthly remains of the townspeople after their miserable existence on earth had ended.
George had thought that his wife, Mary, would have probably married somebody else (perhaps, even rich Sam Wainright) and had their four kids with him. But that hadn't happened, because Mary wasn't meant to fall in love with anyone but George.
Suddenly, George understood how his life had touched so many others and he prayed to live again--and, thus, the rest of this wonderful movie!
Here's something that might be a treat for you, if you adore little Zuzu (whose touching words provide a beautiful climax for this story) as much as I do. She has always reminded me of my goddaughter, Wendy, when she was that age in both appearance and voice.
Even when it isn't anywhere close to Christmas, the message of that wonderful movie is a very important one:
We can all do something to make a positive difference in the lives of others--and, even when we see what we do (good or bad) as being insignificant, we never know, like ripples resulting from the splash of a tiny pebble, how widespread the results might become!
You might believe that--since you can only afford to give a dollar to a place like Invisible Youth Network--what you do really doesn't make a difference, so you might choose to do nothing. But remember that--if everybody felt the same way that you did--nothing would get accomplished. However, if lots of people donated just a dollar (and the more the merrier), IYN would just about be able to have the sky as the limit!
Having said this, I'd like to take you to a donation page.
When you get there, don't lament what you can't do but, instead, focus on what you can!
At this time, I would like for you to pardon my construction dust (if you're visiting there on November 20, 2007) and--if you haven't already--join the IYN Community @ Care2. It won't be in its current construction mode forever. In fact--if you're reading this at a later date--it's, likely, already up-and-running.
If you would like to read a progress report re: construction, you can go here. Even after the construction is finished, I'll still be keeping this thread as a memory.
November 20, 2007 is the 62nd birthday of a wonderful man named Roger Dean Kiser. I hope that you'll pay a visit to his website and read his wonderful stories, The stories are free, but there IS a donation button there--and a donation that's even as small as a dollar will help to keep this important site running.
There have been times when Roger has thought about closing this site because, along with being a labor of love on his part, it has also been a financial drain to maintain it. Then, he will hear how some young person reading his stories was given the courage not to commit suicide at a low time in his/her life, and he knows that he has to keep the site operating for as long as he can, even if all of the money comes out of his pocket.
He told me that even an occasional dollar from everybody reading his stories would make an amazing difference!
I'd like to end this share by taking you to the wonderful words of a story about the big difference made by a homeless, old man sleeping in a cardboard box--somebody whom the world might have given up on and thought that he was simply taking up space.
This story might be pure fiction, but I have the feeling that it was based on something that really happened--and, even if not, I know that it has, in one way or another, happened over and over again.
I know this from personal experience.
Back in the fall of 1973, I wasn't suicidal but I was definitely very depressed--and depression was a new and frightening feeling for me--and was about to drop out of college.
That was when one of my best friends (Diana Foust, who is now Diana Foreman) wrote me an angry letter when I told her of my plans. The gist of the letter was pretty much summed up in one of the sentences she wrote:
"You'd be a fool to drop out of college with all you have going for you!"
Diana was writing this letter from Logansport State Hospital where she had gone (been placed against her will, actually, by her parents--but it turned out to be a helpful experience) to get her medicine adjusted in hopes of lessening her grand mal epileptic seizures. Thanks to her condition, she hadn't even been able to finish high school.
It was her words that made me change my mind about dropping out--and, today, I have a BA in English! Thank you, Diana, for making such a wonderful difference in my own life during a very low time in your own!!!
I'm writing more of my story in detail in a book, but I will say that I would go on to take some other college courses, and, in one of them, I would learn about a new kind of surgery that would soon be coming to the United States that would cure seizures in epileptics!
In 1985 (when she had just turned 33 years old--almost 30 years after starting to have seizures), Diana became one of the first people to undergo this surgery here in the US, and, by 1986, she was even able to drive a car! She would, soon after that, graduate from high school. Today, she holds a good job with benefits at a hospital in the city where she and her family live.
I'd also like to thank a college classmate (Mark "Animal" Williams--not to be confused with my "adopted" kid brother and computer guru who is also named Mark and whom I wouldn't have met had I dropped out of college back in 1973) for his words of encouragement during this painful and confusing time. He told me to write, and I told him that I no longer had that ability--which was very depressing to me in itself, as I had, before then, been a prolific and entertaining writer.
He told me that I didn't have to write something that was really good but just to start writing, and my gift would return to me.
It has! Thank you, Animal!!!
You never know how far something you do will spread (good or bad), so no person nor deed is insignificant!
Now, here's the story about what the old, homeless man living in a cardboard box did.
I'm hoping to see you/continue to see you at IYN @ Care2, because there isn't a one of us who doesn't have anything to contribute to making the difference in the lives of Invisible Youth.
Ainsley Jo Phillips
Vice-Chairman
Resource Center & IYN Community @ Care2
An Open Letter...To Whom?...To YOU, If You're Reading It!!!
