For One More Day By Mitch Alom

For One More Day By Mitch Alom

Prologue: "Let me guess. You want to know why I tried to kill myself." –Chick Benetto's first words to me. T H I S IS A STORY ABOUT A FAMILY and, as there is a ghost involved, you might call it a ghost story. But every family is a ghost story. The dead sit at our tables long after they have gone. THIS PARTICULAR STORY belongs to Charles "Chick" Benetto. He was not the ghost. He was very real. I found him on a Saturday morning, in the bleachers of a Little League field, wearing a navy windbreaker and chewing peppermint gum. Maybe you remember him from his baseball days. I have spent part of my career as a sportswriter, so the name was familiar to me on several levels. Looking back, it was fate that I found him. I had come to Pepperville Beach to close on a small house that had been in our family for years. On my way back to the airport, I stopped for coffee. There was a field across the street where kids in purple t-shirts were pitching and hitting. I had time. I wandered over. As I stood at the backstop, my finger curled in the chain-link fence, an old man maneuvered a lawn mower over the grass. He was tanned and wrinkled, with a half cigar in his mouth. He shut the mower when he saw me and asked if I had a kid out there. I said no. He asked what I was doing here. I told him about the house. He asked what I did for a living and I made the mistake of telling him that, too. "A writer, huh? " he said, chewing his cigar. He pointed to a figure sitting alone in the seats with his back to us. "You oughta check out that guy. Now there's a story. 

"I hear this all the time. "Oh, yeah? Why's that? "

"He played pro ball once. " "Mm-hmm."

"I think he made a World Series. " "Mmm. "

"And he tried to kill himself. " "What? "

"Yeah. " The man sniffed. "

From what I heard, he's damn lucky to be alive. Chick Benetto, his name is. His mother used to live around here. Posey Benetto. " He chuckled. "She was wild. " He dropped his cigar and stomped on it. "Go on up and ask him if you don't believe me. " He returned to his mower. I let go of the fence. It was rusty, and some of the rust came off on my fingers. Every family is a ghost story. I approached the bleachers. GO WHAT I HAVE written here is what Charles "Chick” Benetto told me in our conversation that morning – which stretched out much longer than that–as well as personal notes and pages from his journal that I found later, on my own. I have assembled them into the following narrative, in his voice, because I'm not sure you would believe this story if you didn't hear it in his voice. You may not believe it anyhow. But ask yourself this: 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. What if you got it back?

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