0:04

Are you still buried in snow

0:07

or ice? Or has your little corner of the

0:09

world begin to thodd just a bit? And one

0:11

of the blessings of living in the

0:13

Pacific Northwest is that our weather

0:16

isn't as harsh as it is in other

0:18

areas. But whoa boy, can't it be

0:20

unpredictable? You know that old saying

0:22

march comes in like a lion and marches

0:24

out like a lamb. Well, where

0:26

I live it applies to hourly

0:29

weather changes in the late winter early

0:31

spring. One minute there's rain

0:34

or sleet that's coming in sideways.

0:37

The next minute the sun so bright it nearly blinds

0:39

you. But you know what else? Through it

0:41

all, the asparagus in my garden

0:44

manages to poke itself up out of the soggy

0:46

soil. The crocus and the

0:48

tulip follow sweet, and before

0:50

long there are oceans of daffodils lapping

0:52

at the shores of my meadows. The

0:56

weather as crazy as life can be too.

0:58

But it's these little mere miracles that

1:00

happened not in spite of, but because

1:03

of the mixture of rain and sleet

1:05

and sun that so reassuringly

1:08

delights my senses while calming

1:11

my soul. No one else helps

1:13

to get me through the rest of this Chili season.

1:15

Reading immersing myself

1:18

in a book transports me out of my

1:20

own reality, places

1:22

me in the middle of the characters that I'm reading

1:24

about. That is why I have

1:26

a book club on Delilah dot com

1:29

to recommend some good reads I hope

1:31

will do the same for you. It's also

1:33

the reason that I so revere book authors.

1:36

Their gift is a gift to us all. Like

1:39

today's guest here on Love Someone,

1:41

he is the much celebrated author

1:44

seven number one New York Times

1:47

bestsellers, including true stories like

1:49

Tuesdays with Marie and Have

1:51

a Little Faith, as well as the

1:54

novel that really blew My mind,

1:56

The Five People You Meet in Heaven. All

1:59

of his writing, as novels as memoirs

2:01

have the same central theme

2:03

of faith, of kindness, the power

2:05

of community. He has honed

2:08

the gift of finding the miraculous

2:11

in the mundane and then shining

2:13

a spotlights was to share the goodness

2:16

with us all. Let's welcome

2:18

Mitch album too. The conversation today,

2:20

right after I say a few words

2:23

about one of our podcast sponsors,

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3:11

Today we are welcoming Mitch Album.

3:14

It's good to have you here. You started

3:16

writing. You started your writing career as

3:19

a sports writer for the Detroit Free

3:21

Press, and now you are an accomplished

3:24

songwriter, accomplished pianist, accomplished

3:27

lyricists. You've written best sellers,

3:30

and we're going to talk about

3:32

not one, but two of

3:35

your books today, Finding Chica

3:37

and The Stranger in the Lifeboat

3:41

the I always say that I wrote

3:43

Finding Chica, which was a story

3:45

of our losing our little girl that

3:48

we had we adopted from Haiti when

3:50

she died when she was seven. I always say I wrote

3:53

that book in pain, and I wrote

3:55

The Stranger in the lifeboat in healing, and

3:58

so they are kind of connected to one other very

4:01

much. So let's let's

4:03

talk about you for just a minute, um

4:06

Mitch, because you've had quite

4:08

a prolific, productive,

4:11

busy, busy, busy

4:13

life. I think I'm busy. And then I

4:16

was reading about all the wonderful projects

4:18

that you have embraced and opened your arms

4:20

too and taken on. And

4:23

one of the sweet things and finding Chico was

4:25

the way that you described your daughter and

4:28

how she was a natural born leader

4:31

and that she loved having kids to boss

4:33

around and and to follow her.

4:36

And you said, you know, I don't know where that came

4:38

from, if that was something that she got

4:40

in the early years of her life or having

4:44

raised as many kids as I've raised, some that I

4:46

gave birth to, most that I adopted, I can tell

4:48

you because you did not get her at birth,

4:50

but I did raise several from

4:52

birth. They're born with that, They're

4:55

born with that, And I think God put YouTube

4:58

together because it sounds like you were born with that.

5:01

Well, she certainly had me beat if

5:04

I was born with it. She just basically

5:07

led me around by the nose. But

5:10

you know, for people who don't know the background

5:13

on it. I went to Haiti

5:15

twelve years ago after the earthquake

5:17

of two thousand ten, a couple of weeks after it,

5:20

on a factfinding trip with

5:23

a pastor who said that his orphanage

5:25

had been destroyed, and before

5:29

long I ended up taking over that orphanage.

5:32

And I've been there ever since. I'm there every

5:34

month of my life for the last twelve

5:36

years. I'll be there every month of my life if I

5:38

don't move there for the rest of my life. And

5:41

uh, I have fifty four children now

5:43

that we raised there at the

5:45

orphanage, and Chica was one

5:47

of them. She came to us when she

5:49

she was born three days before the earthquake, so she

5:51

actually survived the earthquake as

5:53

a three day old. Uh. The

5:56

house that she was in collapsed around her,

5:58

but she and her mother were spared because

6:01

the roof fell backwards and they were just kind of

6:03

left on the bed out in the open, you

6:05

know, naked to the sky. So

6:07

that night she slept in a bed of sugarcane

6:09

leaves in the dirt, and

6:12

that that was her bed for the next six weeks.

6:14

So you'd have to say she was

6:16

born pretty tough, and she remained

6:18

that way even when she came to us a couple of years

6:21

later after her mother died during

6:23

childbirth of a baby brother, and

6:26

she lived with us at the orphanage

6:28

for several years, and she was, as you say, the Lila,

6:30

the bossiest, pushiest kid that we

6:32

had and uh loud.

6:34

I mean she was like ethel merman and size

6:37

two shoes. You could hear her from across

6:39

the way. It didn't matter if she opened up

6:41

and bellowed out. You could be across the street

6:44

and you know it was her, and and you

6:46

know, she was just delightful. She was you know, that

6:49

kid Chica. Everybody said, oh,

6:51

that's just chica, that's just cheek. And then when

6:53

she was five, she developed

6:55

a brain tumor, and we brought her to America

6:58

thinking that well, American died, or will

7:00

take it out and we'll bring it right back to Haiti and

7:02

she'll resume her life. And instead

7:04

she never went home, and she

7:07

became our daughter, and we traveled

7:09

around the world trying to find a cure for

7:11

this incurable disease

7:14

that she had. And she lived

7:16

two years, which is about a year and a half

7:18

longer than she was supposed to live and

7:21

during that time, we

7:23

ultimately didn't find a cure, but we did find

7:25

something else. We found a family,

7:28

my wife and Chica and me, And

7:31

we've never had children of our own, even though I

7:33

have fifty four orphans.

7:36

Uh. And Chica suddenly

7:38

was a five year old who was sleeping at the foot of

7:40

our bed and waking us up for breakfast and

7:42

giving us this chance at all these amazing,

7:46

incredible things that you get when a child comes

7:48

into your life. And you

7:51

know, when she died, I

7:53

was very angry at the world

7:55

and at God in particular, because

7:58

I didn't think that there could be a benevolent

8:00

God who would not be benevolent

8:02

to a seven year old, especially one

8:04

who had suffered as much as she had. And

8:07

I wrote the book Finding Chica because I wanted

8:09

to tell her story about the two of us

8:12

and and and her life. You

8:14

know, while it was all in my heart, in my head,

8:16

because it was all I could think about, and

8:18

as I say, it was kind of written in pain. Even though

8:20

I think it's a pretty hopeful and

8:23

good spirited book, you know, it's not a horrific

8:25

book. You know from the page one of Finding

8:27

Cheeka that she dies it's not a mystery,

8:30

and she actually comes back and is talking to me

8:32

as as kind of her ghosts and

8:35

visiting with me all that time when we tell her story.

8:38

And then a few years later, when it you

8:40

know, enough time had

8:42

passed, I began to

8:44

sit down to write a book that was about healing

8:47

and about what happens when we cry out

8:49

for help, as I had cried out for help

8:52

with Chica, and we don't get it

8:54

in the form that we wanted,

8:57

and how do we react to that? And that's

8:59

what A Stranger in the Lifeboat is about. You're

9:02

amazing. You're amazing.

9:05

Thank you for going to Haiti. Thank

9:07

you for saying yes, I

9:10

don't know many people that would have done that. Well,

9:13

I think I think once you, once you see

9:15

the kids, an awful lot of people

9:17

would have done it. I just happened to have the

9:19

means to be able to, you

9:22

know, go down monthly and then you're

9:24

gett ensnared by those children.

9:27

And of the fifty four

9:29

that we have their forty nine

9:31

of them were kids that

9:34

I had to admit, you know, there

9:36

were five that were there when I first got there,

9:39

But the other forty nine are children

9:41

who were brought to us by

9:43

whomever, you know, a relative,

9:46

a grandparents, sister. They

9:48

were found out in the street. You know that

9:51

one of our children was left to die in the

9:53

woods and someone found

9:55

them there crying, no name, no birth certificate

9:57

or anything, and and and brought him to

10:00

us. Another kid was left at a malnutrition

10:02

center, uh and in the hallways

10:04

for two years. No one ever picked

10:06

him up. You know, he dwindled

10:09

down to fourteen pounds, and

10:12

then he was brought to us again, no names

10:14

of birth certificates or knowledge or anything. And when

10:16

you are the you're the thing standing

10:19

between a child

10:21

like that, you know, maybe living or dying.

10:24

There's no options, there's no patting yourself

10:26

on the back, there's no aren't

10:29

we great for doing this? You're just desperate

10:31

to save the child when you see the

10:33

conditions that they're in. And so of course

10:35

we'll take bring that child here. We have to.

10:38

We have to get them food and water and

10:40

medicine and all those things. So I'm

10:42

pretty sure you, Delila, or

10:44

anybody who's listening to this, if they

10:46

happen to be in that situation, would do the

10:48

same thing. Well, I do the same

10:51

thing. In Ghana, there

10:53

you go. But it's hard.

10:55

You know. We take people over every year, every

10:58

every chance we get hope

11:00

that they'll see what you just

11:03

said and jump in and say, yeah,

11:05

yeah, I'll do this, I'll partner with you, I'll

11:07

come alongside you. And

11:11

I don't know, I don't know

11:13

how you can see a child who's starving

11:15

and not say yes, I will feed this child. I will

11:17

commit to feeding this child every day

11:20

for the rest of their life. Right.

11:23

I made little notes in the

11:25

book about some of

11:27

the profound wisdom

11:30

that you included that was so

11:32

sweet that unless

11:34

you are looking

11:37

for that help or that hope,

11:39

maybe you might miss it. But one

11:41

of the things that you

11:44

said in Finding Chica is

11:46

there are many kinds of selfishness

11:48

in this world, but the most selfish

11:51

is hoarding time, because

11:53

none of us knows how much we have, and it

11:55

is an affront to God to

11:58

assume there will be more. Yeah,

12:01

that is probably the most profound thing I have read

12:03

in several months, because

12:06

it's so true. It

12:08

is true, and uh, you know, I

12:11

wrote it out of having learned it the hard

12:13

way, you know, to assume that, oh,

12:16

there's always going to be time. I think when I was writing

12:18

about I was talking about my younger

12:20

years and when I was just working, working, working,

12:22

working, and figuring we would get

12:25

around to starting a family and we get

12:27

around all the things that we never got around

12:29

too. And to presume that there's going to

12:31

be time is you know,

12:33

an affront to God, because every

12:36

day is a gift, and you say, well, good, I'm getting a gift today.

12:39

I'm sure I'll get the gift tomorrow, and I'm sure I'll get

12:41

the gift next week and given next

12:43

year. And that's that's

12:45

being ungrateful. And of course,

12:47

Chica, when you lose a child, you realize

12:50

how precious every day is. You know,

12:52

when the child only gets to live seven years,

12:55

you recount every day of it. But

12:57

you know, I've I've learned a lot of lessons

13:00

on the way, and I try to uh.

13:02

Almost everything that you'll read in one of my books

13:04

is pretty much me having done

13:06

something stupid and then having had

13:08

to figure out the sentence

13:11

that I ultimately end up writing in the book,

13:13

which is the case of what you just brought

13:15

up. I love your honesty

13:17

about that. Um the Stranger

13:20

in the Boat. I haven't received

13:22

my copy yet. I ordered it so

13:24

hopefully it'll be here today. But it didn't get here

13:26

in time to have this conversation, so I

13:28

didn't. I did research the last week

13:31

and I'm I'm reading everything I can, all

13:33

your comments from readers

13:35

who read it and loved it, and I'm

13:38

thinking, just from what I've read this this

13:40

might end up like Tuesday

13:42

where it needs to be you know, maybe

13:44

put on the screen. Oh,

13:47

that's actually already in motion, believe

13:49

it or not. The Stranger in the Lifeboat

13:51

from a reception point of view,

13:54

you know, Sales or something has been the

13:56

biggest book I've written in ten

13:58

years. I'm not quite sure why.

14:00

Um let's look

14:03

around us and say, who needs

14:05

a lifeboat now more than ever? Oh yeah,

14:07

the world maybe COVID

14:10

and has something to do with it. But the

14:13

you know, the premise of it, you know. I

14:15

always set out in my books, you

14:17

know, And I'm not like some other writers who

14:19

start with the plot, which is a great way

14:21

to do it. I just for me, it always

14:24

seems that I have an idea that I wanted to explore,

14:27

and once I said, okay, I want to write about that

14:29

idea, then I decide, okay,

14:31

let me come up with a plot that kind of fits that

14:33

idea. So in this case, as I said, I

14:35

wanted to write about asking for help,

14:38

not just because over the last couple of years,

14:40

we've all asked for helping one way,

14:42

shape or form. You know, Please help me

14:44

not get COVID, Please help my relatives in

14:46

the hospital, you know, not die from COVID.

14:49

Please let me keep my job. You know, there's

14:51

so much kind of crying out

14:53

to the universe for help. But also because,

14:56

as I say, I kind of went through this experience

14:58

of my wife and out losing the wild and

15:00

that's the ultimate sort of crying out for help.

15:03

And and so I thought, well,

15:05

where's the most desperate situation that

15:07

I can create to try

15:09

to explain this kind of theory

15:11

of crying out for help and maybe not knowing

15:13

that help is coming even

15:16

if we, you know, don't recognize

15:18

it. And so I thought, well, how about

15:20

a lifeboat? And the first

15:22

couple of pages of the book are basically

15:25

set up the whole thing that there's

15:27

this luxury yacht that owned

15:29

by one of the richest people in the world. He invites all

15:31

his rich, famous friends on and they're all

15:34

out there, uh, you know, having

15:36

a grand time, and all of a sudden the boat

15:39

explodes and everybody

15:41

is killed except ten people, five of whom

15:43

are the rich guests, and five of whom

15:45

are the staff who were serving them

15:47

on the boat. And they find their way to this life

15:49

raft and they're floating out there for three

15:52

days and nobody's

15:54

coming for them, and they see

15:56

sharks in the water, they're running out of food

15:59

that you know, that it's hot, and they

16:01

realized this could be the end, and

16:03

in all their own particular ways,

16:05

they're crying out for help. And suddenly

16:07

they see this body floating in the water

16:11

and they pull it into the raft and it's this young

16:13

guy, very nondescript, average

16:15

looking guy, nothing special about him,

16:18

and they pepper him with questions he did He doesn't

16:20

speak, and finally one of the women

16:22

says, well, thank the Lord, we

16:24

found you, and he says, I am

16:27

the Lord. And that's

16:29

the setup for the book, and it becomes

16:31

this question of what

16:34

do you believe and and you know, where

16:36

do you accept your help. Everybody on the

16:38

boat doesn't believe he is who

16:41

he claims because he doesn't look the part.

16:43

And he gets thirsty and he gets

16:46

hungry and he sleeps a lot, and so they

16:48

just think he's some cook who banged his head,

16:50

you know. And when he keeps saying I'm the Lord,

16:53

and they said, what are you doing here? And he said,

16:55

well, haven't you been calling me? I came

16:57

because you called me. And they said, are you

16:59

going to save us? And he says, well, I can only save

17:01

you if everybody in this boat believes

17:04

I am who I say I am at the same time.

17:07

And the simple a thing is that would be to

17:09

do, especially if you're out

17:11

in the middle of the ocean with sharks around you

17:13

and no food, no water. I think,

17:15

well, how hard is it to just believe in something? But they

17:17

don't. And so as

17:19

the days go by, you know, more

17:21

mysterious things keep happening, and you're

17:24

left as a reader to sort of try

17:26

to figure out, well, is this guy

17:29

really he says he is? Or is he not? And

17:31

and the point of it is that

17:34

sometimes the help that we asked for

17:37

when we're really down, uh,

17:39

it doesn't come the way we wanted to. And

17:42

I think especially Americans, when we ask for

17:44

help, we pray, we kind

17:46

of want to help like that, you know,

17:48

like we're ordering a sandwich, like we

17:50

rubbed the magic lamp, and the genie appears

17:53

and grants our wish right,

17:55

and when it doesn't come, we get

17:57

like a little ticked off, like, well, that's not

18:00

sandwich I ordered, you know, or this isn't it.

18:02

And and yet I have observed Delilah

18:05

that And I'm old enough now to say

18:07

this, like I say, I've not having made

18:10

many mistakes. The opposite way,

18:12

Um, God, the universe, whatever

18:14

you choose to believe in, it doesn't operate

18:16

on our timetable. But

18:20

if you think about how many times in your life you

18:23

look back on something that was bad, that

18:25

happened, and then

18:27

you end up saying, well, you know, when it happened at the time,

18:29

I was really upset. It was terrible. But if

18:32

that hadn't happened, then this won't happened. I wouldn't

18:34

have to move here, I wouldn't have met this, but we wouldn't have got married

18:36

whenever, And you said, well, I guess that's kind

18:38

of been its own way. Was the best thing that could have happened

18:40

to me? Well, if it's the best thing that could have happened

18:43

to you ten years from now, it

18:45

is the best thing that could happen to

18:47

you right now. It's just we don't

18:49

see it that way because we only see what's

18:51

right in front of us. And I

18:53

kind of take this full circle. I

18:56

realized that, you know, losing

18:59

Chica, when I kept looking

19:01

at it from the point of view of losing her, I

19:04

wasn't looking at it from the point of view of getting

19:06

her. I wasn't looking at

19:08

at the point of view that she was a gift that

19:11

my wife and I in our mid fifties suddenly

19:14

had the chance to have a family and

19:16

have a child, and and and have

19:19

all the joy that you get from having a child in your life

19:21

after never having had it. That's a gift.

19:23

That's an answer to a prayer that we made fifteen

19:25

years earlier that we thought was an answer,

19:28

but it was answered. It just was answered

19:31

later. And you know, the stranger

19:33

in the light boat kind of tries to explore

19:35

all that kind of stuff. I knew

19:37

when I was reading the comments from listeners

19:39

and just from the descriptions that

19:42

I had read, I knew that

19:46

just from that, just from the comments from

19:48

from your readers, that it was going to have a

19:51

profound impact on people. I

19:53

heard a man speaking one time whose

19:56

daughter had developed bone cancer.

19:58

She was training to be a professional ballet

20:00

and she fell and broke her femur, and

20:02

they're like, nobody breaks their femur. And

20:05

it was because she had a tumor

20:07

in her leg and she had to have

20:09

the leg amputated, which ended

20:11

her hopes of being a professional dancer.

20:14

Actually it didn't because she went on to become a teacher,

20:17

Um, a dance teacher. But

20:20

it ended his life. For

20:22

seven years, he was unable

20:24

to to move past

20:26

it, and just kept saying why

20:28

why, why? Why? Why? God? Why why would

20:30

you punish a child that had never done anything

20:32

wrong? Why? Why? Why? And he said, when

20:34

I stopped asking why and

20:37

started asking what now? What

20:39

would you have me do now? Um,

20:41

he was able to put his

20:44

life back together. And the

20:46

same year you lost your daughter, I

20:48

lost a son and

20:50

I trying to remember that

20:54

message, what would you have me to do now?

20:57

Yeah? Well, there's a moment

20:59

in this book that has become

21:03

kind of It's been so cited by the people

21:05

who have read it that I know the page number

21:08

to forty one. Uh,

21:10

and people keep writing to me about page

21:12

to forty one. Why did you write page

21:14

to forty one? How did you come up with page

21:16

to forty one? And it's

21:19

a moment where one of the passengers

21:21

on the boat in kind

21:23

of a desperation. It's not the end of the book,

21:25

but it's three quarter mark

21:28

and kind of desperation for everything that has happened.

21:30

And he's mourning his wife who died,

21:33

and he turns to the God character and

21:36

says, you know, why did you take my wife?

21:38

Why did you have to die? And

21:40

the answer that comes is why

21:44

is it that when a human being

21:46

dies, his loved ones always

21:48

say why did God take them?

21:51

Maybe a better question would be why did

21:53

God give them to us? What

21:55

did we do to deserve

21:58

or merit their attention,

22:01

their love? The memories? Didn't

22:03

you have that with your wife? And

22:05

the guy says every day? And

22:08

the answer is, well, those memories are

22:10

a gift, but their absence is

22:12

not a punishment. I'm

22:14

not cruel. I don't take things

22:16

away from you to punish you. This

22:19

world is just part of the story.

22:22

I know that you cry when

22:25

your loved ones leave this planet, but

22:28

I can assure you they're not crying.

22:31

And when people have

22:33

asked me, you know, while where did you write that

22:35

well, obviously I wrote that for

22:37

myself. I wrote that so

22:39

that I could deal with

22:42

Chicken not crying here,

22:45

even though we're crying for here, And

22:47

to look at it as what did I do

22:50

to get a chance to be a father at

22:54

years old? Uh? Why?

22:57

You know nobody gets that, and yet I did.

23:00

And yet my response is

23:02

how could you take that away? The

23:05

response should be thank you

23:07

for giving me that even for a day, let alone

23:09

for two years. And when now

23:11

that's not an easy thing to do, it

23:13

was easy to write, you know, something

23:16

like that down after four ruling

23:19

years of tutting

23:21

yourself through the through the ring, or

23:23

I wouldn't have been able to write that sentence or page

23:25

to forty one a year

23:28

or a month or a week after Chick had died.

23:31

But that's what I mean about time. You

23:33

know, time is its own medicine,

23:36

and time is is in

23:38

some thing else's hands

23:41

than ours. If you believe in

23:43

God, that it's in God's hands, if you just believe

23:45

in the universe, and it's in the universe's hands,

23:48

but it is not in ours. And it's

23:50

the one thing that that frustrates

23:52

us and we leave, you know, leaves

23:54

us so maddened because we

23:57

want to control everything, you

23:59

know, and yet we still can't control

24:01

the time that we get, the

24:04

little amount of it or the long amount of it.

24:06

And and you know, all

24:08

these different characters in the Stranger

24:10

in the Lifeboat, they sort of end

24:12

up posing the questions to God that

24:15

I would ask God, or I imagine

24:17

Delilah, you would ask if instead of having

24:20

me as a average guest,

24:22

you've got a special guest like God.

24:24

And God was your said, We're gonna we're gonna

24:26

do a podcast with God today, and I've got a few questions

24:29

for God. Here they are, And

24:32

I tried to sort of put those questions

24:34

in the mouths of the of the passengers

24:36

on the boat. Wouldn't that be amazing

24:39

if we could do that? I said

24:41

to my pastor one time. I said, I

24:43

just wish he would write me a letter and explain

24:45

this to me, because I can't. I can't

24:47

figure anything out. He said, he did. It's

24:50

called the Bible. You don't read that. You wouldn't read

24:52

a letter either, And I was like, WHOA,

24:56

Okay, thank

24:58

you for that. Uh

25:01

So, how how is your wife holding up?

25:03

You mentioned in your book about

25:05

Chica that you two had kind of made it come

25:07

to a decision not to argue in front of

25:09

her, not to talk about her

25:12

condition in front of her, because she was there to make

25:14

you happy. How is

25:16

she holding up? An? Has she found

25:18

her God in the lifeboat? Um?

25:21

Well, my wife has always been more

25:23

faithful and and had

25:26

a purer faith than I have, and

25:29

it helped carry her through the

25:32

whole time that Chica was sick, and

25:34

even after Chica was gone. Um,

25:37

I was the one who questioned thing she

25:39

never did. But you mentioned that moment where

25:42

I remember that where we were in the hospital

25:45

and something happened

25:47

at my job that

25:49

I took a phone call and I found

25:51

it was really frustrating. It is a really stupid thing

25:53

that was becoming a big thing and it shouldn't

25:55

happen. And I said something,

25:57

and Jenny said something, and we were going back and worth

26:00

and and and just I was frustrated. She was frustrated,

26:03

and Chica was in I

26:05

was in the bed and she said, hey

26:07

guys, Hey guys, that's

26:10

how she call Hey guys, what

26:12

are you fighting about? You know? And

26:15

I felt so bad at that moment,

26:17

Hey guys, And uh,

26:20

I said, what are we doing? You know, like we're in

26:22

a hospital, because we spent a lot of time

26:24

in hospital, so it wasn't it wasn't

26:26

a new experience. But I

26:28

walked over to cheek and I said, it's all right, sweet, I'm

26:31

sorry, you know, um, it's nothing.

26:33

And and she she said that

26:36

she was sad or

26:38

you know, and I said, well, why why why does it

26:40

bother? She's because I can't make you happy,

26:43

you know. And I realized that she was when

26:46

we were arguing. She was taking

26:48

it on herself, like I need

26:51

to do something to make them happy. And

26:53

when the child is afflicted with a brain tumor

26:55

and she's in a hospital bed and

26:57

and she's thinking about what am I supposed

26:59

to do to make them happy? The least

27:02

you can do is not make that child

27:04

unhappy. And and you

27:06

know what, in its own way to Elilah, that

27:09

moment and others

27:11

like it, kept Janina and I from

27:14

going down a path that a

27:16

lot of people who lose children go down.

27:19

A lot of couples break

27:21

up after a child died.

27:24

More than is

27:27

that what it is? I know it was high

27:29

and I understand that because every

27:31

time you look at your partner, you're seeing

27:33

the ghost of of of your child

27:35

as well. And then there's you know, there's these

27:37

subtle well maybe you should have done something more,

27:40

Why didn't you help do more? But

27:42

we never had that because chicab

27:45

made sure that she helped us

27:47

together. You know, throughout the process,

27:49

we knew like it would it would be such a dishonor

27:52

to Chica for us to break up.

27:55

That would be the worst thing we could do to her memory. Chica.

27:58

When we were in um, when we were in

28:00

Germany, we lived in Germany for a little while

28:03

for these immunology treatments that you can't get

28:05

here in the States, and uh,

28:07

we had to live in this tiny little flat. You

28:10

know, we have a nice comfortable house to here in Michigan.

28:12

It's plenty. Everybody has the room and everything.

28:14

But there we had to live in this one

28:16

room apartment, had one bathroom,

28:19

the single bedroom one bed, so

28:21

we all had to sleep in the same bed, which of course,

28:23

at our age we weren't crazy about. But Chica

28:26

loved it because like she had us all

28:28

to herself and there was no one else there, and

28:30

we were around her all the time. And so I

28:32

would sleep on one side and he would sleep in the other

28:34

and she could sleep in the middle. And this one

28:37

time and even were about to go to bed, and she could go Mr

28:39

Mitch, Mr Need, Mr Mitch, miss Need. He

28:42

said, well, she goes kiss kids, kis,

28:44

kis kiss kiss because she's love to watch, you know,

28:46

princess and princesses kiss and stuff.

28:49

So we were in like a little tent, you

28:51

know, tep over her in the bed. So we

28:53

kissed and she was underneath us

28:55

since she started to clap, and she said,

28:57

now you can live happily ever after,

29:01

and you can't

29:03

dishonor that

29:06

wish by

29:08

breaking up or getting

29:10

mad at each other. And I think we just tell

29:12

those kinds of stories to one another and they bring

29:14

us closer together. So our our

29:17

love for Chica is a unifying

29:19

thing. In our case. We're very fortunate because

29:21

you know, the couples who do split up, they've done

29:23

nothing wrong. It's just grief

29:26

is taking a different hold on them. You know, it's

29:28

coming at him from a different angle, like a wrestling move.

29:31

Um that one takes them down. And we've got

29:33

and we managed to escape, and we're

29:35

very lucky. You were very

29:37

blessed. You were very

29:39

blessed. And you have been a blessing

29:42

to so many. You know, it would

29:44

be fun as if I could go with you two

29:46

Haiti and interview some of those kids. Come

29:49

on, it's no problem. Meet me

29:51

there and we'll pick you up the airport. I probably

29:54

met you there. I was probably there because I was there three

29:56

days after the earthquake when you were well.

29:58

Come on back. Our

30:00

kids are good interviews. I know

30:02

they are. I know they are. Most

30:05

of the work I do is in Ghana, and

30:07

in Ghana the buses are called tros,

30:09

and in Haiti their tap taps.

30:12

But if anybody

30:15

wants to smile, look

30:17

up online the tap tap busses in Haiti.

30:20

The artwork is mind boggling.

30:23

So the most creative artwork

30:25

I have ever seen in my life are

30:27

on the tap taps in Haiti.

30:30

When you're stuffed inside with forty other

30:32

people, you know, cheek

30:35

to cheek and sweaty elbow to sweaty

30:37

elbow and no air conditioning and no anything.

30:39

The artwork doesn't doesn't really comfort

30:41

you very much on the outside, but it's fun to

30:44

look at when you're behind it. It's

30:46

really quite something for a country

30:48

that has so little, you know, Second, force

30:50

country on the planet. And you

30:52

know, the average salary is two

30:54

dollars a day, and unemployment

30:58

and illiteracy and all these ridicul listening

31:00

high numbers, and there's such faith.

31:03

They're such faith, And you

31:06

know, it's easy for me

31:08

to write books like I do being

31:11

there, and I wrote a lot of The Stranger in the Lifeboat

31:13

down there, and I would write

31:15

it and uh, in fact, the kids read

31:17

it before it came out, because

31:21

you know, I have to sit outside because it's too hot

31:23

sometimes inside, especially if you don't have a fan

31:25

or whatever. So I sit outside. And

31:27

if I have a computer like I bring down,

31:29

well that's a big deal because we don't have computers.

31:32

So the kids start buzzing

31:35

around me immediately, and what are

31:37

you doing, Mr Mitch. I'm working on a book.

31:39

What's the book called, Mr Mitch? A Stranger

31:42

in the lifeboat? Who is a stranger in the life

31:44

boat? Mr Mitch? Okay, this is too many questions.

31:47

How about if you read it, I'll let you go

31:49

read it and then you know, and and so they said, yeah, can we

31:51

read it? So I printed it out a bunch of copies and

31:53

I gave it to them and they went

31:55

off and read it, because they'll read everything

31:57

and anything with you. When you don't have TV, and you don't

31:59

have internet, you don't have cell phones or whatever. You'd be

32:01

amazed at how much kids love to read. And

32:05

they did and are like fifteen year old, fourteen

32:07

year old, sixteen year old. They had some pretty

32:09

good ideas on

32:12

it. You know, they had some pretty good questions

32:14

and I made some edits as a result of

32:16

the stuff that they did. So um,

32:19

their faith, you know what

32:21

was was a big kind of what

32:24

what an amazing focus group. You're writing

32:26

a book about finding God in

32:28

tough circumstances and you've

32:30

got kids who have known nothing but tough circumstances

32:34

and who have the biggest faith. Like you said,

32:37

the kids we work with in Ghane

32:39

and the kids that we have interacted

32:41

with and helped in Haiti have

32:43

the biggest faith of anybody I've ever met in my life.

32:47

What a great focus group for you. Yeah,

32:50

it's a pretty cool place to to work

32:53

and to write books, at least hopeful books,

32:55

which is what I try to write. All your books

32:58

that I have read, and I've read some are

33:00

very hopeful, very

33:02

inspiring, and not sugarcoated.

33:06

A lot of books of faith or books

33:08

that inspire faith are so sugarcoated

33:11

or so pretend you

33:13

know that they

33:16

make my skin crawl. They set my teeth

33:18

on edge, like I just date a cupcake from

33:21

Costco, you know. But yours

33:23

are very beautiful

33:25

and do inspire. So

33:27

thank you, thank you, and thank you for

33:29

being here with us today. I

33:32

enjoy it. Is there anything

33:34

I can do to bless you,

33:36

to make life better, or

33:38

anything I can shared that would

33:41

bless you in any way? Well, if you want

33:43

to share with your listeners that

33:46

they can go to our website

33:48

for Haiti, which is called have Faith

33:50

Haiti dot org and read about

33:52

our kids and if they want to get

33:54

involved in some way from helping out

33:57

to coming down the volunteering or anything

33:59

like that. A pretty comprehensive

34:01

website. Over the course to twelve years, we've got

34:03

a lot of videos of our kids and pictures

34:06

and updates and everything. So I

34:08

love to spread the word about that more so than

34:10

about my you know, books or

34:12

things like that. So if you can tell

34:14

people that let's have faith Haiti dot

34:17

org, awesome, we will do that. Mitchell

34:19

Baum, thank you for being with us. Thanks

34:22

for having me on. Let me know if I can ever be any

34:24

help, or if you want to come down to eighty, I will

34:27

thank you. Mitch

34:30

has given us so many gifts already and so

34:32

much to think about. In today's conversation,

34:35

let's recap a bit, but first a

34:37

shout out to another one of my amazing

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you have been listening to my voice on

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on the radio four years. Off

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the radio, I'm taking care of my kids,

34:54

taking care of my dogs, riding

34:56

my horses, growing plants

34:59

in my gardens. And you know what it

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hurts. It does. My hands

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hurt, my back hurts, my knees

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36:11

L. Mitch Albom

36:13

became a household name after the release

36:15

of Tuesdays with Morey, a

36:17

memoir of his visits with his old

36:19

college professor during the

36:21

last day of Maury's life. It

36:24

was a book full of lessons on living, on dying,

36:26

on loving. Since then, he has continuously

36:29

put forth works just as insightful,

36:32

compelling, inspiring, like

36:35

his latest finding Chica and The

36:37

Stranger in the Lifeboat, both available

36:39

wherever books are sold. And while

36:42

his books have sold over forty million

36:44

copies, he might also be interested

36:46

to know he's an accomplished songwriter, pianist,

36:49

lyricist. He and his wife Janine

36:51

worked tirelessly to better the lives

36:54

of kids at the orphanage they started

36:56

in Haiti and the many other charitable

36:59

organization that they established

37:02

and support. They embody the

37:04

lessons we first learned in Tuesdays

37:07

with Marie love Winds.

37:10

I asked Mitch what I could do to

37:12

help. He said, please spread the word about have

37:14

Faith Haiti dot org. Have

37:16

Faith Haiti dot org. Go there see

37:20

how you can help, how you can become

37:22

a part of this amazing mission.

37:25

I'll be here in the meantime, keeping

37:27

you company on the air here n Loves

37:29

Someone, where we have truly

37:31

the greatest, most inspiring

37:34

conversations, and on my

37:36

new daily podcast, Hey It's Delilah,

37:39

where I share best on air moments

37:41

with you in potent daily doses.

37:45

Spring is on the way and we

37:47

will get there together. Thank

37:50

you for joining me on Love Someone

37:52

with the LIMA.

38:01

Don I know