First Phone Call from Heaven

by Mitch Albom

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.

“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 only thing scarier than leaving a small town is never leaving it at all.

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

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.

“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.

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

So often, we push away the voices closest to us. But once they’re gone, we reach for them.

When love dries in a marriage, the children become mortar for the bricks. When the children leave, the bricks just sit atop each other.

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.”

What do you do when the dead return? It is the thing people most fear—yet, in some cases, most desire.