For One More Day by Mitch Albom
For One More Day
by Mitch Albom, author of Tuesdays with Morrie and Five People You Meet in Heaven
For One More Day has inspired various good and bad reviews. In my opinion, I think this book is for everyone to read as a lesson in how we view our parents and our lives. I also think that depending on where one is in life, and the relationship one has with their parents, will not only make a difference in what one gets from the story but will influence what kind of review they give. I hope you will read it and see what life journey it may take you on.
Sometimes, just sometimes, a story will make one think about their own life, family and may often help us make right a few things we have gotten all wrong or misunderstood about someone we love.
For One More Day is a story about a man whose life had gone all wrong. His father left when he was young and he and his sister were raised by their mother. He was angry about not seeing his father and assumed it was his mother’s fault his father left. Because of his assumptions, he showed no appreciation for all of the sacrifices his mother had unselfishly made for him. After his baseball career ended and his mother passed away, his life spiraled out of control causing him to lose his own wife and a relationship with his daughter. When he had a serious accident, he was caught somewhere between this life and death and received a visit from his deceased mother. He was given “one more day” with her and learned the real truth of why his father left and the true sacrifices his mother had made.
This book can make one think quite differently about how to answer the question, “What if you could have one more day with a deceased loved one, who would it be?”
I read this book when it was first published in September of 2006. My dad had passed away that May and as I read this book, thoughts of my dad kept bringing me into the realization of how little I actually knew about my father. Well, of course, I thought I knew my father very well. After all, I had lived in the same household with him for 18 years of my life and once I moved out on my own, I still saw him every week, then I married and moved away and talked to him a couple times a month. He was my dad, but it kept nagging at me, just how well did I know my dad? My dad’s parents and siblings had passed away before he did. I realized I had no one to ask about my dad’s life before he married my stepmother and after they married, my connection with him was distant and strained. The sad part is that I now know I only knew my dad as I wanted my dad to be, not as he was. Any of this sound familiar?
My answer to, “What if you could have one more day with a deceased loved one, who would it be?” was my dad. However, this is not as simple as wanting to know who my dad was, who did he want to become, did he have any dreams and did he live the life he loved and wanted. You see, I was raised by my grandmother while my dad was in the military serving time overseas, then when he returned, he married and brought home my stepmother. Where was my birth mother, one might ask? I was with my father and birth mother until the age of 3, and when they divorced, my father somehow got custody of me, unheard of in those times, and I only saw my birth mother two more times, the last being downtown while shopping for new shoes to meet my “new” mother at the age of six. So as one could guess, one of the critical questions I would ask my dad for that “one more day” conversation, is to tell me the true story of what happened between he and my mother, and why was I not allowed to see or hear from my mother after the divorce, or for that matter , ever again? My dad would never allow me to ask that question and out of respect for my stepmother, I chose not to pursue or attempt to find my birth mother after his passing.
What changed after reading this book for the second time? As the story unfolded, my thoughts changed from my dad, keeping in mind I still wanted that conversation if it were ever possible. However, since that first reading of One More Day, my husband passed away, after 46 years of marriage. One would think one would know everything about someone they lived with for 46 years. I am here to inform all who think this, that even with in-depth conversations with a loved one we just are not going to know them as well as we think we do, nor will they know us, ever!
Now you may think that I changed my direction and have chosen my husband to have that “one more day” with, right? Make no mistake, I would like “one more day” with my husband and I would have the conversations we should have had with each other in our time together, the deeper in-depth ones we always knew we were avoiding. However, I now would choose my birth mother. Why now? To know, before I leave this earthly existence, why we were never allowed to see and know each other. Who was she and who did she become. Did she ever think of me, did she ever want to see me, talk to me, know how my life had unfolded, and before she passed away, was I even a whisper of a thought to her?
I would highly recommend this thought-provoking book to everyone. It would also be an excellent read for all book clubs.