Have you ever lost someone you love and wanted one more conversation, one more chance to make up for the time when you thought that they would be there forever? If so, then you know you can go through your whole life collecting days, and none will outweigh the one you wish you had back.
What if you got it back?
If you had the chance, just one chance to go back and fix what you did wrong in life. would you take it? And if you did, would you be big enough to stand it?
..........
LET ME GUESS. You want to know why i tried to kill myself?
You want to know how i survived. Why i disappeared.Where i've been all this time. But first,why i tried to kill myself, right?
It's OK. People do.They measure themselves against me. It's like this line is drawn somewhere in the world, and if you never cross it, you will never consider throwing yourself off a building or swallowing a bottle of pills ---- but if you did, you might. People figure i crossed the line. They ask themselves,, "Could i ever get as close as
he did?"
The truth is, there is no line.There's only your life, how you mess it up, and who is there to save you.
Or who isn't.
LOOKING BACK, i began to unravel the day my mother died, around ten years ago. I wasn't there when it happened, and i should have been. So i lied. That was a bad idea. A funeral is no place for secrets. I stood by her gravesite trying to believe it wasn't my fault. And then my fourteen-year-old daughter took my hand and whispered. " I'm sorry you didn't get a chance to say good-bye, Dad," and that was it. I broke down. I fell to my knees crying., the wet grass staining my pants.
After the funeral, i got so drunk i passed out on our couch. And something changed. One day can bend your life, and that day seemed to bend mine inexorably downward.My mother had been all over me as a kid ---- advice, criticism, the whole smothering mothering thing. There were i wished she would leave me alone.
But then she did. She died. No more visits, no more phone calls. And without even realizing it, i began to drift, as if my roots had been pulled, as if i were floating down some side branch of a river. Mothers support certain illusions about their children, and one of my illusions was that i liked who i was, because she did. When she passed away, so did that idea.
The truth is, i didn't like who i was at all.In my mind, i still pictured myself a promising, young athlete. But i was no longer young and no longer an athlete. I was a middle-aged salesman. My promise had long since passed...
...After that, i drank more...but it became a problem which, in time, got me fired from two sales jobs. And getting fired made me keep on drinking. I slept badly. I ate badly. I seemed to be aging while standing still...Money became a problem; Catherine and i fought constantly about it. And, over time, our marriage collapsed. She grew tired of my misery and i can't say i blame her. When you're rotten about yourself, you become rotten to everyone else, even those you love...
...I left my family shortly thereafter ----or they left me...
...My mother, had she been alive, might have foung a way through to me because she was always good at that, taking my arm and saying," Come on, Charley, what's the story?" But she wasn't around, and that's the thing when your parents die, you feel like instead of going into every fight with backup, you are going into every fight alone.
And one night, in early October, i decided to kill myself.
Maybe you're surprised. Maybe you figure men like me, men who play in a World Series, can never sink as low as suicide because they always have, at the very least, that "dream came true" thing. But you'd be wrong. All that happens when your dream comes true is a slow realization that it wasn't what you thought.
And it won't save you.
WHAT FINISHED ME, what pushed me over the edge, strange as it sounds,was my daugher's wedding. She was twenty-two now, with long, straight hair, chestnut-coloured, like her mother's, and the same full lips. She married a "wonderful guy" in an afternoon ceremony.
And that's all i know because that's all she wrote, in a brief letter that arrived at my apartment a few weeks after the event.
Apparently, through my drinking, depression and generally bad behaviour, i had become too great an embarrassment to risk at a family function. Instead, i received that letter and two photographs, one of my daughter and her new husband, hands clasped, standing under a tree; the other of the happy couple toasting with champagne.
It was the second photo that broke me. One of those candid snapshots that catches a moment never to be repeated, the two of them laughing in midsentence, tipping their glasses. I was so innocent and so young and so...past tense. It seemed to taunt my absence.
And you weren't there. I didn't even know this guy. My ex-wife did. Ou old friends did.
And you weren't there. Once again, i had been absent from a critical family moment. This time, my little girl would not take my hand and comforted me; she belonged to someone else. I was not being asked. I was being notified.
I looked at her envelope, which carried her new last name (
Maria Lang, not
Maria Benetto) and no return address. (Why? Were they afraid i might visit them?) And something sunk so low inside me i couldn't find it anymore. You get shut out of your only child's life, you feel like a steel door has been locked; you are banging,, but they just can't hear you. And being unheard is the ground floor of giving up, and giving up is the ground floor of doing yourself in.
So i tried to.
It's not so much, what's the point? It's more like what's the difference.
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Plot SummaryFor One More Day tells the story of Charles "Chick" Benetto, a child who is always forced to choose between his mother and his father. He grows into a man and starts a family of his own. But one fateful weekend, he leaves his mother to secretly be with his father and she dies while he is gone. This haunts him for years. It leads him to depression and alcoholism. One night, he decides to take his life. But somewhere between this world and the next, he encounters his mother again, in their hometown, and gets to spend one last day with her--the day he missed and always wished he'd had. By the end of this magical day, Charley discovers how little he really knew about his mother, the secret of how her love saved their family, and how deeply he wants the second chance to save his own.
For One More Day will make you smile. It will make you wistful. It will make you blink back tears of nostalgia. But most of all, it will make you believe in the eternal power of a mother's love.
I first read this book when i borrowed from Caron to read it outfield during our battalion exercise, while i was having status. The introduction overwhelmed my tiny soul, and as i read on, it made me wanna cry. How often have i not treasured the love of my parents..my family and the ppl i feel close to me? How often have i wished that i could have one more day to "undo" certain things in my life? I had an urge to treat my mother betterl, perhaps even give her a hug. I remembered the times when she stood up for me..and the times i did not stand up for her. The unique writing style of the author also impressed me. Though the several flashbacks can be a bit confusing at times, it appropriately reflected the way i think -- in bits and pieces. The ending is also a surprising twist. I found something in common b/w the author, Mitch Albom, and i. I eventually bought this book at the popular bookstore in sun plaza. It's definitely changed my life.
"Don't you ever tell a child something's too hard."
"A child should never have to choose."
"Secrets..they will tear you apart."
"Going back to something is harder than you think."
"I had no one to talk me out of my despair, and that was a mistake. You need to keep people close. You need to give them access to your heart."
"There's a story behind everything. How a picture got on a wall. How a scar got on your face. Sometimes the stories are simple, and sometimes they are hard and heart-breaking. But behind all your stories is always your mother's stories, because hers is where yours begins."
I would like to make things right with those i love.
And i would keep walking till the day i die.
When he went blundering back to God,His songs half-written, his work half done,Who knows what paths his bruised feet trod,What hills of peace or pain be won?I hope God smiled and took his handAnd said, "Poor truant, passionate fool!Life's book is hard to understand:Why couldst thou not remain at school?"
&its not what you think
9:17 am
