Writer's Workshop: George Bailey

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The prompt that I chose for this week is:

What is it about that movie that makes you cry every time?

The desperation that George Bailey feels, feeling like everyone would have been better off had he never been born, those things get to me every time. Sure, the scene at the end where the whole community comes to his rescue is heartwarming, but it is the bridge scene that makes the biggest impact on me. Maybe I don't bawl my eyes out on the outside, but it grabs my heart. I've been there.

When he's at the bridge rail contemplating jumping into the water, Mr. Potter's words drilling through his head and heart that he's worth more dead than alive, looking back over a lifetime of waiting for his turn only to have his turn always be just out of reach, I understand his frustration completely. He had hopes and dreams to see the world, to escape the force field of his home town and nothing worked out as he had planned at all. The harder he pushed to leave, the more things happened to hold him there.

In the end he realized that, although he didn't get to see the world, his world, his place, was right there in Bedford Falls. He had all that he needed right there and always had. What had seemed a restrictive force field before was now a comforting hug.