Book Excerpt: Mitch Albom's 'For One More Day'

ByABC News via logo
September 26, 2006, 7:30 AM

Sept. 26, 2006 — -- Mitch Albom touched hearts everywhere with "Tuesdays With Morrie" and "The Five People You Meet in Heaven."

Now, he's back with another novel sure to change the way readers think about their loved ones.

"For One More Day" is the story of Charley, a grown-up child of divorce who has always been forced to choose between his mother and father.

When his mother, Pauline, dies alone, he's sent into a tailspin of alcoholism and grief.

As Charley's life falls apart, Pauline revisits him. Charley gets to spend one more day with her, as he always wanted.

NOW, WHEN I SAY I SAW MY DEAD MOTHER, I mean just that. I saw her. She was standing by the dugout, wearing a lavender jacket, holding her pocketbook. She didn't say a word. She just looked at me.

I tried to lift myself in her direction then fell back, a bolt of pain shooting through my muscles. My brain wanted to shout her name, but there was no sound from my throat.I lowered my head and put my palms together. I pushed hard again, and this time I lifted myself halfway off the ground. I looked up.

She was gone.

I don't expect you to go with me here. It's crazy, I know. You don't see dead people. You don't get visits. You don't fall off of a water tower, miraculously alive despite your best attempt to kill yourself, and see your dearly departed mother holding her pocketbook on the third-base line.

I have given it all the thought that you are probably giving it right now; a hallucination, a fantasy, a drunken dream, the mixed-up brain on its mixed-up way. As I say, I don't expect you to go with me here.

But this is what happened. She had been there. I had seen her. I lay on the field for an indeterminate amount of time, then I rose to my feet and I got myself walking. I brushed the sand and debris from my knees and forearms. I was bleeding from dozens of cuts, most of them small, a few bigger. I could taste blood in my mouth.

I cut across a familiar patch of grass. A morning wind shook the trees and brought a sweep of yellow leaves, like a small, fluttering rainstorm. I had twice failed to kill myself. How pathetic was that?