It’s a Wonderful Life
On December 18th, my dad turned 60 years old. To be frank, this is a milestone I did not expect him to reach when he was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s at the young age of 53. Despite the many challenges and continual changes that a diagnosis like that has brought about, as each of the 7 years have passed, I have become increasingly grateful just to have him around, to be able to give him a hug, to wish him a happy birthday and to show him I love him. Having him here and celebrating yet another year of life holds a special meaning, representing a small but impactful win against this currently incurable disease. It was particularly special for us to celebrate a big milestone for him — his 60th.
Growing up I had watched parts of the 1946 film “It’s a Wonderful Life”, but never the whole movie from start to finish. A few years ago, I was flying home from college for winter break and decided to watch it on the flight.
The story centers around a man named George Bailey who gives up his life dreams to take over his father’s building and loan business in the small town of Bedford Falls. While doing his best to serve the community, financial challenges surmount to the point where George contemplates taking his own life. At that critical moment, his guardian angel, Clarence, stops George and shows him how bleak the town would be if he had never lived. Together, George and Clarence experience a hypothetical version of Bedford Falls without George’s impact, effectively demonstrating to George how all the little things he did to help his community added up to fundamentally change their lives and the town. Realizing the value of his life and the differences he made, George returns to that near fateful moment with a newfound appreciation for life. Despite the financial challenges he still faced, but grateful to be alive, George makes his way back home to meet his family.
At this point in the film, my flight landed and I had to de-board, but I was hooked and sat down in the terminal outside my gate to finish streaming the movie on my phone.
When George arrives at his house, he embraces his family. However, he is also met by over a hundred townspeople who, grateful for his kindness over the years, have all pitched in to save his business. George is overwhelmed with their generosity and is at a loss for words. In the donation basket, George finds a book. Inscribed in the cover is a note from his angel Clarence,
“No man is a failure who has friends.”
It was at this moment where I was completely overcome with emotion. Sitting amongst a heavily populated terminal of holiday travelers, I tried hard to fight back tears, but they persisted. At the time, I wondered why the movie, particularly the ending, had struck such a strong chord with my heart. I finally began to piece it together and slowly worked through the many parallels between George’s story and my own father’s. Beyond inheriting a family business in a small town, it was something about the ending of the film that really got me. After years of making ends meet to serve his hometown, from helping Mr. Martini purchase a new home to stretching his business’s cash reserves to get customers through the Depression, George’s years of good deeds are met in the end with a gratitude and thankfulness that is overwhelmingly profound. In his darkest moment, the people of Bedford Falls come together to support George who had been there for them when they needed it most. Despite feelings of failure and not being enough, George is reminded by Clarence that no man is a failure who has friends.
It dawned on me that Clarence’s note, scribbled into the cover of the book, was indeed the breaking point that pushed my emotions over the edge. I realized that despite my growing feelings of grief and sorrow over a premature goodbye to my hero, my dad, Clarence’s reminder to George also served as a reminder to me that my dad’s shortened life is not for nothing, and that the countless individuals who know and love him are direct reflections of that.
I’ve been told many stories about my dad in similar circumstances to George, making ends meet for the people of the town he loves. I’ve heard and witnessed many — stories of stopping his truck in a storm to help a stranger shovel their driveway — stories of going out of his way to help elderly couples safely into their cars — stories as a funeral director displaying immense kindness and empathy towards families who were going through their darkest moments.
At first glance, those examples may seem trivial — simple things we convince ourselves that we would do if given the chance. However, what has set my dad apart is that he is the only person I know who is actually willing to do those things and without hesitation. I’ll be the first to admit that while I try my best, I often fall short of the example he has set. I have found myself at times hesitating in those moments for fear of embarrassment or my help being unwanted. I have regretted not taking those chances on things I know my dad would do in a heartbeat.
Still today, despite battling a disease that is slowly robbing him of his identity, this one quality remains true about my father. Unlike other diseases, Alzheimer’s has a unique way of tearing apart the superficial aspects of your identity until you are only left with your true and unfiltered self. What has inspired me most about my father in recent years is that even after several years of disease progression, he fundamentally remains the man he always was — a man willing to drop everything to give his heart and hand to help even a stranger in need.
I’ve only had the privilege of knowing my dad for 23 years of my life, which is realistically only about 15 years if you just count the parts I remember. This means that nearly half of my remembered life with him has been blurred by his new condition. It’s for precisely this reason that I have come to know most about him through conversations with our family, his friends, and his old classmates who have known him for over 50 years. I try to take it all in, to learn more about the man I once knew too. One thing that has struck me over many separate conversations is the amount of times their respect for him gets brought up. I didn’t fully grasp the amount of communal respect and appreciation that is held for my father until this past weekend, when we celebrated his 60th birthday.
As I mentioned before, turning 60 is a noteworthy milestone for my dad, particularly given his condition. Our family knew we had to make the most of it. We decorated the house and garage with red and black balloons, set up tables and chairs, and hung elk and beagle themed signs and decor. Our intent was to have an open-house style party, allowing guests to come and go freely across a few hours of allotted time to keep the numbers at any one point relatively low and in turn, to keep things relatively calm for my dad who no longer does great in highly stimulating environments.
1 o’clock rolled around and the guests began to flow in — and they didn’t stop. By 1:15 the living room was full. By 1:30 the garage had completely filled up. Before 2:00 the house was overflowing and people had to find space to congregate outside. Before I knew it, I could barely navigate through our house without physically bumping into anyone. In total, over 130 friends and family came from far and wide, from their homes located minutes away to multiple hours and states away to show their support for someone they cared very deeply about.
Not only did so many people attend, but nearly all of them stayed the entire time as well. Our open-house style plan completely backfired, but for good reason. Leading up to the party, we were worried about how my dad would handle it all and how he would react to seeing friends he had not seen in multiple years. Despite our prior concerns, he was great. He reacted to the faces of old friends and lit up in ways I had not seen in some time. He came alive, visually and verbally reacting to old photographs that were brought, hugging old friends and telling them that he loved them, responding to questions of “Do you remember me?” with “Of course I do!”. It was a long and exhausting day for my dad, but it could not have gone any better and my family could not have been more grateful.
Periodically throughout the day, I intentionally took moments to pause and take all of it in. Like George in the final scenes of the movie, I was taken aback by the sheer number of people who made it a point to show up and be there for my dad. Numerous times I was pulled aside by his old friends, some of whom I had never met or hadn’t seen in a while. They all shared with me how much my dad meant to them. After expressing my gratitude for their attendance, I was met by an understanding that they wouldn’t have missed it for anything.
We will all reach points of dread, existentialism, and new lows that we thought couldn’t possibly exist. I can’t imagine what feelings my dad must have felt upon hearing his diagnosis for the first time — how gutted he must have been to realize what his future held. Despite this, he never wavered. He comforted us when we were broken by the news. He never complained about the unfairness of it all and instead, met his condition, not with a heart of hate, but with a heart full of immense gratitude for his life and those he loves around him. He found comfort in knowing that we would be there for him in times exactly like these.
In a similar sense, only recently I have come to meet my feelings of anguish and frustration towards this unjust disease, not with a heart of hate, but with a heart of tremendous love, gratefulness, and pride for all my dad has done and the incredible example he has set for me to follow. I take comfort knowing what his life has meant to so many.
If there is one lesson to take away from tragedy, it is that within tragic circumstances lies a hope that can endure suffering, desperation, and situations that are unable to afford us assurances or guarantees. While it may have taken an old movie for me to realize it, that kind of hope is rooted in a life of love, friendship, and unconditional acts of kindness coming full circle. Regardless of how long our life may be, there will always be a degree of incompleteness, a desire to be more, to have done more. Our mark on this Earth will be measured by those who love us and those who stand by us in our darkest times so love tirelessly and meet tragedy with gratitude. Whenever I am with my family, whenever I listen to old stories of my dad, whenever I reflect on the collective good he has put into this world, I am reminded that it’s truly a wonderful life.
