Monday, June 18, 2007

Book Review : For One More Day by Mitch Albom

Waaahhh….. What a touching book. Sedihnya. This book will teach you stuffs, my friends. It will teach you about forgiveness, parental love and especially teach you about the sacrifices they make. It will make you want to reach for your mammy or your daddy or even better both of them.

It will make you reflect on your relationship with your parents and this book will make you weep for the wrong things you have done to them. When I read this book, I imagined myself as the narrator. After every anecdote, I will remember almost similar incident that happened to me and then I will be overwhelmed with regret. Children will always hurt their parents because they don’t understand. There is no maturity. It is quite okay if you don’t mean to hurt but if you do it with intent… well, then….

This book is about Chick who totally lost it when his mom died. He lost it because the last time he spoke to his mom the conversation was full of deceit and he couldn’t wait to leave her. All his life since his father left, he had been angry with her and the last time they spoke to each other was no exception. When she died he drank his sorrows away and became a person that his wife and daughter could not live with. The failure of his marriage made him turned to alcohol further more and he lived in the shadows.

Until one day when he received a letter from his daughter announcing her marriage. He was not even invited. He didn’t even know his new son-in-law. He was overcome with grief so momentous that he decided to take his own life. But before that he wanted to visit his childhood home for the last time.

He was involved in an accident on the way there and escaped unhurt. Since the accident happened near his home, he decided to resume the journey on foot, still fresh from the disaster. Imagine his surprise when he opened his door, his momma was there to greet him.

Then, like all moms are wont to do, she consoled, supported, and guided him.

His dad once told him “ You can either be a momma’s boy or your daddy’s boy. You could never be both. So choose, “. Chick said, he chose his father because unknowingly, you will cling to the person that was most likely to leave. And he was right. His daddy left. I felt so sad because to me his father leaving changed him. If his father had stayed, he wouldn’t be a drunken man, living his regrets.

Books like these are important. It could either teach or make you realise about certain aspects of the life you lead, or better still both. To me, kesedaran itu penting. It is good if the kesedaran is long lasting but even it if it lasted for a short while, giving you enough time to make a difference even a smidgeon, that is good enough for me. This book reminded me again that I do not know every little thing that effects my parents’ decisions. That even at the times when I hate them, even if at that time their decision seemed cruel or stupid to me, they did it out of love and for my best interest.

We do not exactly have a clear guidebook on how to be good parents. All of them are usually vague and very macro at best. We make mistakes. Parents make mistakes. Therefore it is crucial for children to understand whatever mistakes parents did, it was out of love.

This is my third book by good old Mitch. My first was Five People You Meet In Heaven followed by Tuesdays With Morrie. Both books were out of the normal topics that people usually write about. Although love was still the main staple, but it was presented to us in unique plots.

Read it.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

aisey sakit mata la font colour kuning, susah nak baca! Min