Moments

So I was watching a very old interview today done with Jimmy Stewart and he was talking about how his favorite film he made was “It’s A Wonderful Life”. The movie was not successful at all when it was released and he felt that after that movie, in which he played a romantic family man, his career choices became pigeonholed into the same types of characters. He didn’t think the studios believed he could ever be anything more than that.

He was wrong, of course, and continued to speak about how very important that movie was to him. When he received a draft of the original script, he read the scene where he prays at the bridge where he had once considered ending his life. The dialogue read “Clarence! Clarence! Help me, Clarence. Get me back. Get me back. I don’t care what happens to me. Get me back to my wife and kids. Help me Clarence, please! Please! I want to live again. I want to live again. Please, God, let me live again.”

And as he was describing the scene he said it was a true moment of recognition, of longing for what you thought you had lost, of wanting to fix what had been broken. He got choked up just talking about that moment and then said he felt the same emotions when he filmed the scene and was feeling them again as he was describing it to the reporter. Those moments were life-changing for him.

And it got me to thinking that as we age and our memories start to fade, as we sit down to dinner and can’t remember what we had for breakfast, as we start to tell a story and then lose the thread of it, it really doesn’t matter. What matters and what we always remember are the moments. Those sometimes glorious, sometimes terrible moments that have been been sprinkled through our lives.

Aren’t we lucky that our bodies, our brains and (in my humble opinion) our God let us store those moments in our hearts and minds to be cherished and remembered whenever we need to. We all have our own moments if we truly think about it. I remember the day my great kid showed me his first tattoo. It was on his left forearm and said “E + V = E” which meant Eileen and Vinnie, my wonderful parents, had created me. He said he got that tattoo so he would always carry all 3 of us with him every moment of every day.

I remember a moment a few months after my darling Dad passed away. I was angry that I hadn’t gotten a sign from him when everyone else in my family had. I went away for a week or so to try and heal and I was enormously blessed when my beautiful friend, Josh, came to visit me and sat with me on a bench in a garden for almost 2 hours, holding my hand and listening to me talk and hugging me when I cried. That moment he manifested for me resulted in me finally having a sign from my Dad in my dreams that very night. That happened a dozen years ago and there’s not a day I don’t think about it and the gift Josh gave me.

I don’t remember much at all about my dreadful sickness this year but the moment that changed everything was when my great kid’s voice called out to me – as he had been calling out to me for nearly a week – and I finally heard it in my heart of hearts and opened my eyes. He kept saying “Mommy, come back to me” and his words from the person I love more than anyone on this earth saved me.

When my Mom would somehow imagine I was upset with her or that I had run an errand because I needed to get away from her – none of which was ever true – she would write me a note and leave it on my pillow, thanking me for everything I did for her. And when she saw me reading it, she’d come in and take my hand and kiss it and tell me she loved me. What I wouldn’t give for one more moment with her like that.

I have so many other moments, as I’m sure you all do, that are the snapshots of your life. What I know now is that I’m meant to embrace those many moments I have been blessed with and if I forget the rest, if the hours blur into days and the days into weeks, it doesn’t matter. I have lived a great life surrounded by so many good and kind people who I hope know how much they have lifted me up on angel wings and kept me going when I didn’t think I could take another step.

Make more moments and celebrate the ones you already have. As Clarence the Angel told Jimmy Stewart, “You see, George. You really have had a wonderful life”. And I have.