First Phone Call from Heaven

by Mitch Albom

the words people do not speak are louder than the ones they do.

The news of life is carried via telephone. A baby’s birth, a couple engaged, a tragic accident on a late-night highway—most milestones of the human journey, good or bad, are foreshadowed by the sound of ringing.

But a mother’s voice is like no other; we recognize every lilt and whisper, every warble or shriek.

Once you have a sister, you never stop having her, even if you can no longer see or touch her.

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.

You might think that after ten months in prison, a man would bask in liberation. But the body and mind grow accustomed to conditions, even terrible ones, and there were still moments when Sully stared at the walls, as listless as a captive. He had to remind himself he could get up and go out.

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

Every movement in every muscle felt attached to how much Sully missed her.

Husband loses wife. Son loses mother. Joy and sorrow share the water.

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 teach you, as children, that you might go to heaven. They never teach you that heaven might come to you.

“Love.” “Anything else?” “A waste of time, Tess.”

“What is?” “Anything else.” “I don’t understand.” “Anger, regret, worry. . . . They disappear once you are here. . . . Don’t lose yourself . . . inside yourself

Had it not been for a man’s love for a woman, making him jump aboard a train, Bell’s phone might never have found an audience. Once it did, life on earth was altered forever.

“The Bible is full of unlikely heroes, reluctant to hear the call. “Moses did not want to speak to Pharaoh. Jonah hid from the Lord. Young John Mark abandoned Paul and Barnabas. Fear is part of our makeup. God knows this . . .”

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

Knowing heaven . . . is what heals us on earth.”

Knowing heaven is what heals us on earth.

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

maybe some of it was to make the rest of the world feel the pain that he was feeling,

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

Bad news has no limit. We often feel it should, like a rainstorm that can’t possibly get any heavier. But a storm can always worsen, and the burdens of life can, too.

Somehow, heaven was more comforting when it was only in her mind.

There is a time for hello and a time for good-bye. It’s why the act of burying things seems natural, but the act of digging them up does not.

dreams so haunted he hated sleep, real world so haunted he hated to wake up.

“Take time . . . to appreciate God’s creation.” “How does time pass in heaven?”

“Time was made by man. . . . We are above the sun and moon . . .” “Is it light there?” “Always light . . . but not how you think.” “What do you mean?” “Remember when you were a girl, Tess? Were you afraid of the dark . . . when I was in the house?” “No. I knew if you were there, you would protect me.” “Heaven . . . is the same feeling. . . . No fear. No dark. When you know you are loved . . . that’s the light.”

So often, we push away the voices closest to us.

But once they’re gone, we reach for them.

“When people don’t believe in something, they’re lost.”

“Doubt is how you find God.”

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

“If you find one true friend in life, you’re richer than most. If that one true friend is your husband, you’re blessed.”

It’s a quiet theft, how time lures people away.

“What is false about hope?”

“If you believe it, you don’t need proof.”

Desire sets our compass, but real life steers our course.

Desire set their compasses, but the events of the last sixteen weeks had steered them far off course.

Desire sets our compass, real life steers our course.

What in life can love not penetrate?

What in life can love not penetrate?

“That’s not your fault.” “I never said good-bye.” “Such a needless word,” she said, “when you love somebody.”

That’s the thing when people leave us too suddenly, isn’t it? We always have so many questions.

Small towns have their own heartbeat, no matter how many people come or go.

We call out; we are answered. It has been that way from the beginning of belief, and it continues to this very moment, when, late at night, in a small town called Coldwater, a seven-year-old boy hears a noise, opens his eyes, lifts a blue toy to his ear, and smiles, proving heaven is always and forever around us, and no soul remembered is ever really gone.