for one more day

I sooo love Mitch Albom’s books (I also love novels by Nicholas Sparks, but that’s another subject). His stories are really inspiring and full of lessons about life. I have three of his books at home: Tuesdays With Morrie, The Five People You Meet In Heaven, and For One More Day. Out of the three, I like For One More Day best, probably because it’s about a mother’s love.

I remember the day I bought this book. I had just kissed hubby goodbye, and earlier my daughter saw me getting into a cab; I was leaving both of them in the Philippines (hubby would follow 2 weeks later). I was at NAIA all alone passing the time before going to the gate where I would board the plane back to Dubai, with no one but my lonely apartment waiting for me. I was really depressed then. So to keep my lonely thoughts at bay, I decided to buy a book. That’s when I saw For One More Day. While waiting at the boarding gate, on the flight to Dubai, and that first day alone at the apartment, I read and finished the entire novel. Almost all throughout, my tears were falling non-stop. I kept thinking about my own mom and my daughter whom I had to be apart from for five months. Heck! You can’t blame me. I’m sure you’d cry too if you were in my place. I wanted to wallow in my depression, so that book definitely made me cry my eyes out while I was alone.

Aside from keeping me company then, I definitely learned to appreciate my mom more. Actually, I know how much she went through during Papa’s later years, but this book just gives more importance on the often thankless job of being a mother, and the selfless love every mother gives to her child.

The other day while surfing the channels on television, I discovered that the movie For One More Day was showing. It was ok. I watched most of it (the other parts I wasn’t able to watch because I was helping hubby in the kitchen); but like stories, books are much better than their movie version. I’m happy though, that most of the quotes in the book were kept in the movie. Here are my favorites:
• Have you ever lost someone you love and wanted one more conversation, one more chance to make up for the time when you thought they would be here forever? If so, then you know you can go your whole life collecting days, and none will outweigh the one you wish you had back.
• One day spent with someone you love can change everything.
• ...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.
• “I did what mattered to me…I was a mother.”
• When you look at your mother, you are looking at the purest love you will ever know.
• When someone is in your heart, they're never truly gone. They can come back to you, even at unlikely times.
• “A child embarrassed by his mother...is just a child who hasn’t lived long enough.”
• There's a story behind everything..but behind all your stories is always your mother's story..because hers is where yours begins.
• “Children...think of themselves as a burden instead of a wish granted.”

Nice huh? I especially like the last one. We often don’t realize that we are blessings from God, that we’re the answers to our parents’ prayers.

I highly recommend this to everyone...mothers, fathers, sons, daughters. It’s a really nice family story that will inspire parents to be the best they can be for their children.