Echo In Eternity

One of my favorite movies is “It’s a Wonderful Life” with James Stewart. It’s the story of a young man who is full of dreams and destinations, but one by one, he puts them aside in order to help others. Life’s circumstances seem to tear him down to the point of, “I wish I was never born”. He gets his wish by the helping hands of an angel, who shows him ALL the lives that wouldn’t have been touched, if he had not been there for them.

I’m sure this thought has whispered its lie in all of us at some time, “What good am I? They’d all be better off without me. I would never be missed…if I was never born.”

I was probably 16 when I first read one.

I went into my parents bedroom to borrow one of my dad’s ties, when I noticed a card standing up on my mom’s dresser, beside her perfumes. “My Love” was all that was written on its cover. To know my dad, you’d understand why that stood out. He was very reserved. So much so that at 16, I don’t think he had ever told me he loved me…though I always knew he did. When I opened the card and read the words he wrote to mom, I was amazed he had such a passion in him. He spoke to her as if, “All my dreams are fulfilled within your arms.” I felt I had entered a different world of my father in reading that card…a world I wanted to know better…

…a world I didn’t want to leave!

And 2 years later, when I moved to L.A., his cards, (those loving words) were being written to me. So that now, those words written half a century ago…are alive within the words you now read.

He was a young man once, full of dreams and destinations, but put them aside to raise a family. Only to gain them all back, “…within her arms”.

Thanks Dad, your words are forever in me, and will Echo In Eternity.