For One More Day by Mitch Albom is a beautiful, very touching story of a man whose life had been shattered by drinking, regret, loss and grievances. Charley “Chick” Benetto was all decided to kill himself. He was scammed into investing their family savings (he had to explain to his wife where the money went), he began drinking, he got fired from his sales job due to drinking, then he drank more, his family left him and he was shut out from his only daughter’s wedding, just receiving a photo of the event a few weeks after.
As a kid and until he became an adult, and even as a married man and as a father himself, he had labored to get the attention and approval of his father—in which he never succeeded. He had taken for granted everything just to get that approval until he got haunted by them.
On that night that he returned to his hometown, Pepperville Beach, to end his life, he failed to do it. He found himself back at their old house and discovered that his mother who had died eight years ago was still living there. When she saw him hurt and wounded, she hugged him, tended to his wounds and made him breakfast. And from there, he recalled the times he did not stand for his mother and the many times his mother stood for him.
Chick had another day with his mother. Chick then learned the many sacrifices her mother went through after she got divorced, learned how her mother have felt when she was socially ostracized and criticized for being a divorcee, learned the many sacrifices her mother went through just to put him to college (and that included being a cleaning woman) and then learned many secrets including that of why his parents got divorced and why, until the end, he never got the approval he yearned so much from his father. It turned out that his father had another woman and he had another son.
With his dead mother’s help and some people who had significant role in his life he was able to put his life back together and was finally able to forgive himself. The day with his mother came to an end when his body was rescued by some police officers who had heard of the occurrence of the accident where Chick was involved.
At the end of the story, it was revealed that the story of Chick was retold by his daughter Maria Benetto who was already Maria Lang.