For One More Day

Ghosts appear throughout the book, and Chick acknowledges this in the book’s early pages: “...every family is a ghost story. The dead sit at the table long after they have gone” (6). Nearly all of the book’s key events involve the appearance of ghosts, some more metaphorical than others. Because most of the story takes place either in Chick’s memory or during his near-death experience, nearly every character in the book appears as a ghost, by some definition.

His mother’s appearance illustrates the connection between ghosts and memory. While at first he is bewildered about how she could be standing in front of him, she slowly explains to him that, through the power of memory, she can appear to the people who knew her. With greater proximity to death, the line between life and death blurs, and memories take on physical form as ghosts. His father, meanwhile, is a “ghost” in the sense both that he has remained part of Chick’s life through his memories, which influence his decisions as an adolescent and adult, and that his appearance in Chick’s life is unpredictable.

By the end of the book, it is clear that ghosts and memory are, for Chick, practically one and the same. Although he is still convinced that he has had a supernatural or miraculous experience when he spent a day with his mother, its ambiguous nature allows him to remain open-minded and grateful for the insight he gained in the process.

For One More Day is among other things an exploration of the power that memory has to influence the present. It also structures the narrative; Chick’s memories make up a large portion of the text, and much of the time he spends with his mother is itself contained in the memories of people who knew her. Memory thus has the ability to create space between life and death. Chick’s retreat into memory allows him to explore his past and heal long-held emotional wounds.

It’s helpful to think of memory’s function in the novel as layered, and the author uses several different strategies to explore it as a theme. Chick’s trip to his hometown at the beginning of the book represents a return, through the medium of memory, to his past; the metaphor of physical travel parallels an internal process of reflection. Similarly, his mother’s physical presence can be interpreted as a supernatural occurrence, but also as an example of embodied memory; she explains her ability to communicate with those close to death in these terms later, in response to Chick’s questions. The appearance of ghosts is perhaps the most important representation of the confluence of memory and physical reality in For One More Day.

For One More Day tells the story of Chick’s emotional and spiritual healing, prompted by his near-death experience. The pain he has suffered from his unresolved past is symbolized by the cuts and bruises he sustains during his fall from the water tower, and the fact that both are more or less self-inflicted should not be overlooked. His mother is the main agent of his healing process, symbolized by her cleaning his wounds with antiseptic after he arrives at his childhood home.

His physical pain is suspended temporarily for most of the day, but its gradual return as the sun sets marks the fact that the day is coming to a close. The glass shards that stick in his skin after the glass storm in Thelma’s house contribute to this effect. The theme of forgiveness is fully developed during the visit to Chick’s father’s other wife, when they see her praying for forgiveness while looking at pictures of Chick and her son. In this moment, Chick realizes that the pain caused by his father’s actions is borne by all of them. After the day is over, Chick is able to engage in a longer-term healing process when he enters rehab and repairs relationships with his family.