YOUR Wonderful Life

Over a decade ago I was in my hometown of Seattle. I had returned from visiting with an elderly great aunt who lived in Yakima. I had been in Seattle before and after that visit and while there I had enjoyed the  beauty of autumn and the blazing colors that were such a visual joy. But when I returned from my visit to my aunt I found that Seattle was dismal and gray. It was not just that it was rainy. Seattle is legendary for its rain. It rains year round, though it is not so much of a constant deluge, more of the ever present drizzle. Seattle winters are brutal when it comes to cold, wet and wind. The city that has been so vibrant in autumn's glorious gown of sunshine yellows, antique golds, flaming reds and warm browns was now leeched of color. The city was now shaded in the despairing shadows of gray gloom. This was the melancholy gray of the most sinister of depressions --- a suicide gray. According to statistics, more people commit suicide in that barren limb dreariness of winter in Seattle then in any other time of the year.

So let us talk of this time of the year. It is not only Seattle but it is the holidays of Christmas and New Years that also finds people deciding to exit this life by their own hand. Depression brings thoughts that life is no longer worth living, that life is something that a person need no longer hold on to as if it were a hoard of dragon's gold.  "No one loves me. Who will care if I am no longer here? My life does not matter." But those who kill themselves are wrong. Life IS worth living. and their lives might have made a difference if they had not selfishly decide to kill themselves. "Selfishly?" You might ask. How can one say that some poor soul who had decided to end their life is selfish? But killing oneself is a selfish and a cowardly act. It is a craven act against God and against life itself. 

What are the odds that one will be born in the first place?  It is chance and circumstance that has written much of that tale. What were the odds your parents would meet, that you would be conceived and then be born? Pretty astronomical, if one stops to think about it. And now you want to toss it all away. Why? Because your life is as gray as the weather outside. Nobody loves me. Everybody hates me. I think I will eat worms and die. Oh boohoo! I am not accepting an invitation to your pity party. Nor would I show up at your funeral to mourn one who tossed away this great gift that was given to them.  

In the movie classic "It's A Wonderful Life" Jimmy Stewart plays a distraught banker of a small town who is facing ruin. He decides he will kill himself. Instead he "saves" his guardian angel who grants him his wish when he exclaims "I wish I had never been born." It turns out that he had lived a wonderful life that had saved others from poverty and even from death. His life had been a life worth living and at the end of the movie he realizes this. 

So what about your own wonderful life? Isn't it worth living? One can wallow in self-pity and depression to the point of considering or attempting suicide. Or they can do the best to find a way to make themselves feel good. Sometimes this can be a personal thing such as reading  an uplifting book or tackling some job around the house that needs doing and will make one feel satisfied once it is done. But there are other things one can do. Get off your duff and put aside your personal misery. Volunteer at a soup kitchen or a local homeless shelter. If you know of elderly or disabled neighbors, check on them and ask if you might help them in some way. It is YOUR wonderful life and you can use it to make others live better lives just because you are living and have chosen to give of yourself. 

Do not let the gray or the drear keep you down. Uplift the spirits of others and find out just how much your own life is really worth. You might be pleasantly surprised. 

Snooty Aunt Cynthia