If You had one day with
someone who’s Gone........what would you say? What would
you do?
Mitch Albom the author of
Tuesdays with Morrie and The Five People You Meet in Heaven
has written a new book a novel that just came out this week
entitled For One More Day. One of the sentences in that
new novel is “Have you ever lost someone you love and wanted
one more conversation, one more day to make up for the time
when you thought they would be here forever?’ After he
finished the novel with this question, Mitch Album realized
he always wanted to ask this question of his mother who lost
her father at the age of 15.
You may have seen the
article about Mitch Albom’s question “If you had one day
with someone who’s gone” in Parade Magazine a couple of
weeks ago. My thanks to Marv Feld who mentioned this piece
when we sat together going through the Yom Kippur services.
I found the article on
line. After the article there are a number of responses from
readers expressing with whom they would most want to have
that one more day and what they would say.
One person wanted to speak to their father who died suddenly
and tragically and never had a chance to say goodbye. One
woman wanted just 5 minutes with an old man who she did not
know but molested her when she was 5 years old. She wanted
to tell him that he no longer had control over her dreams at
night and she is no longer racked with fear and hate. One
woman wanted a day with her cat whom she loved and loved her
unconditionally.
In the article, Mitch Albom
asks his mother what she would say to her father who she
lost when she was 15. Her father wanted her to become a
doctor, to go to school and not marry prematurely until she
achieved her goals. When her father died however she had to
take care of a younger sibling and a depressed mother. She
married the first boy she ever dated and never finished
college. Mitch’s mother answered her son “I guess if I saw
my father again, I would first apologize for not becoming a
doctor. But I would say that I became a different kind of
doctor, someone who helped the family whenever they had
problems. I would tell him that my mother lived a long life
and was comfortable at the end. And I would show him my
family - his grandchildren and his great-grandchildren of
which I am the proudest. I hope he’d be proud of me too.”
I think many of us feel
that about those who raised us I hope they’d be proud of
me.
At this sacred moment of
Yizkor, I would pose this same question to each of us in
this sacred space filled with cherished memories “If you had
one day with someone who’s gone, who would it be? What
would you do? What would you say?
My answer comes to me in a
flash. Having married later than most (and that’s an
understatement) my mother died five years before Janie and I
were married. My mother was wise and kind enough never to
press me on this issue but I somehow knew it was a source
of sadness for her. I would like to sit in the kitchen
where we would sit and talk. And I would tell my mother that
I am married to a woman I know she would love. If I were
the only one in the family who had the opportunity for this
gift, I would want to tell her about her grandchildren
Daniel and Joel and Jennifer and what amazing young people
they have become. I would want my grandparents to know this
as well but I know my mother would tell her mother right
away. I’m sure they still talk every day.
If you had one day with someone who’s gone what would you
do? What would you say?
When I read this article
from Parade Magazine, I thought immediately of a passage
from Tuesdays with Morrie that has always had great meaning
for me. The entire book is about Mitch Album spending each
Tuesday with his old professor from Brandeis who is dying.
He had much to learn about life and living from his teacher
who was confronting his impending death. One chapter in
particular focuses on death and Morrie says “As long as we
can love each other and remember the feeling of love, we
had, we can die without ever really going away. All the love
you created is still there. All the memories are still
there. You live on -in the hearts of everyone you have
touched and nurtured while you were here. Death ends a
life, not a relationship.” It is this last sentence that I
have most taken with me, in which I have found comfort for
myself and which I have shared with others over the years.
“Death ends a life, not a relationship.”
How great it would be to
have that day to see and to hug and hold and how hard it
would be to let go again. That day is a dream but we do
have this day of Yizkor. It is our day to be with someone,
someones who we love who are gone.
We may have good news to
share that we would love them to know. We may have some
explanation to offer that might hope they would understand.
We may want to say we are sorry for what we did, for what
we did not do, for what we said, for what happened. We might
want to say goodbye because we never had that chance before
they died so suddenly.
Today is our day to say it
and during this time of Yizkor we can say it to more than
just one.
Like all relationships our
dialogue can go both ways. We can also take these moments of
sacred silence to hear their voice speaking to us. What do
they have to say to us? What words of encouragement, of
advice, of correction, of love can we hear?
If You Had One Day with
Someone Who’s Gone. We have this day of Yizkor.
Each one whom we so loving recall today. May their memories
be for a blessing.
