Another Good Book

For One More Day by Mitch Albom

I loved this book. I’d both read and watched the video’s of two of his other popular books, Tuesdays with Morrie and The Five People You Meet in Heaven. Both are very good but in my opinion, this one surpasses them by far. To sum it up simply, I guess I’d call it a book about life, parents, marriage, and forgiveness of self and others. I particularly enjoyed it because it was written from a man’s point of view. But I could probably make a long list of all the other things I especially liked about it, too.

There were several statements in the book that I found quotable, but my favorite was the following. The main character is telling about his parents’ divorce and the effect it had on him. He had mentioned how his mother was so loving and always supported him in spite of his behavior, but how nevertheless, he ‘followed’ after his father who didn’t treat him very good. He said, “You see, here’s my theory: Kids chase the love that eludes them, and for me, that was my father’s love. He kept it tucked away, like papers in a briefcase. And I kept trying to get in there.”

I particularly noted this because I’d observed it in my own life, regarding my own father from whom I never felt love or acceptance.* Since I was never at all close to him and often found things he did, irritating, I often wondered why I would end up doing a lot of those same things, myself - when I got older. I finally came up with the conclusion expressed in the quote. Just to clarify with an example: My father used to talk incessantly, which irritated everyone to no end! Hm-m-m – do we know anyone else that does that? :)

Bottom line is, I thought it was really a great book, from a lot of perspectives. I felt there were a lot of profound statements in it about real life. But at the same time - and this is the really interesting part that I won't explain, because I don't want to spoil it for you - it had a lot of 'not-real-life' in it too - which created some intrigue. And there is also a bit of a surprise at the end. It was a relatively short book - which seems to be Albom's style - and certainly makes it worth the investment of the little bit of time it takes to read it!

* Note the words 'I' and 'felt' - I admit that I don't know that that's how he felt or what he meant to convey!