First Phone Call from Heaven

by Mitch Albom

You have to start over. That’s what they say. But life is not a board game, and losing a loved one is never really “starting over.” More like “continuing without.”

It was like learning of the earth’s destruction while standing on the moon.

“The pain you go through in life doesn’t really touch you . . . not the real you. . . . You are so much lighter than you think.”

Miracles happen quietly every day—in an operating room, on a stormy sea, in the sudden appearance of a roadside stranger. They are rarely tallied. No one keeps score.

The telephone voice is but a seduction, a bread crumb to an appetite.

Faith, it is said, is better than belief, because belief is when someone else does the thinking.

She said the pain we suffer is a way to make us appreciate what comes next.”

They never teach you that heaven might come to you.

He drove out of town feeling relieved and exhausted, as if he’d just slammed a door against a rainstorm.

You might think a person who brings proof of heaven would be embraced. But even in the presence of a miracle, the human heart will say, Why not me?

“Fear is how you lose your life . . . a little bit at a time. . . . What we give to fear, we take away from . . . faith.”

Sometimes, love brings you together even as life keeps you apart.

Tess shrugged. “I don’t know. At times I feel like nothing matters anymore. I think, this life is just a waiting room. My mother is up there—and I’ll see her again.

There are two stories for every life; the one you live, and the one others tell.

Sometimes what you miss the most is the way a loved one made you feel about yourself.

Desire sets our compass, but real life steers our course. Katherine Yellin had only wanted to honor her sister. Amy Penn had only wanted a big career. Elias Rowe had only wanted to run his business. Pastor Warren had only wanted to serve God. Desire set their compasses, but the events of the last sixteen weeks had steered them far off course.