For One More Day

I went to Starbucks today for the first time in a while and realized how much I miss just sitting there with good company sippin' on a coffee and talking and laughing. Coffee is gooooooood...

Got the coffee today. They were fresh out of company tho.

In any case while I was waiting in line for my drink I saw they were selling Mitch Albom's novel For One More Day. I had no idea who the author was (although a little mild research reveals I've at least heard of his best sellers, and that whole "best seller" part indicates, if nothing else, he has an audience of best buyers so he must be serviceable, unlike Trevor's runningback corps ;-) ) or what the book was about, but the title got me thinking - if I could have just one more day with someone I'd lost, who would it be? And would I actually want to do it?

I've lost a lot of family and by a lot I mean nearly all of them but , but I moved away from "home" when I was four years old, so I really wasn't close with any of them to speak of. I've had a lot of broken friendships/relationships, and while there's a few of them I would like to have one more day with, for the purposes of my discussion here I'll limit the prospect pool to the deceased.

That leaves two options that come to mind. The obvious choice would be Stuart, my dear friend who was killed in a drunk driving accident on the way home from a California vacation on Memorial Day weekend. I'd love to have him back, but I don't need to. I made my peace w/that one long ago. The one I don't understand and I'd be curious to chill with for one more day would be James, another elementary and high school friend who took his own life. He was pleasant, relational, had an incredible gaming mind, and simply brilliant in his own way. His death was an absolute shock as we all found out on Christmas a few years ago.

The real question, though, is would I really want to do this?

Nope, not a chance. Let the dead be dead. That's easy for me to say since I've never lost a parent, I don't really have any siblings to lose, and I have no wife or children. I think that if I'd lost any of those, it's entirely possible such a decision would be dramatically more difficult. Nonetheless, it seems that exchanging that one day's experiences for what's likely to be many days or weeks of additional grieving is a bad trade-off. Generally speaking, I don't see any sense in reopening those old wounds.