Mitch Albom, FINDING CHIKA
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[0:49]I am so excited to be here today with Mitch album,
[0:53]who is the author of seven number one New York Times best sellers,
[0:57]including Tuesdays with Maury, the best-selling memoir of all time.
[1:01]His book collectively have sold more than 40 million copies worldwide,
[1:04]and have been translated into 47 languages.
[1:07]His latest memoir is Finding Chica, a little girl in earthquake and the making of a family.
[1:11]Mitch has written award-winning TV films, plays, a musical,
[1:15]and has written a syndicated newspaper column for 30 years.
[1:18]He was voted in America's best sports columnist by the Associated Press Sports.
[1:22]He founded, say, S-A-Y Detroit in 2006, which oversees nine full-time charities in the
[1:28]Metro Detroit area.
[1:29]In 2010, he began operating the have faith-hating mission orphanage.
[1:34]He currently lives with his wife Janine, who he calls Mr. Janine in this book,
[1:37]and Mitch again.
[1:38]So welcome to Mitch.
[1:39]Thanks for coming on Mom's Valentine's Readbook, Mitch.
[1:42]Welcome.
[1:42]Thank you.
[1:43]Thank you.
[1:43]The beer.
[1:44]So Finding Chica, please tell listeners what this book is about,
[1:48]and what inspired you to write it.
[1:49]Well, that's a big question.
[1:52]So I operate in orphanage in Haiti.
[1:55]I have since the earthquake of 2010.
[1:58]I'm there every month when we have 52 children.
[2:01]Three days before the earthquake happened, a little girl was born whose name was Chica John.
[2:07]She, on the third day of her life, was inside a cinder block, one room house with her mother,
[2:14]when the earth shook, and the house collapsed around them.
[2:17]The roof fell off.
[2:19]Miraculously, she survived.
[2:21]That night, she slept out in the sugarcane fields in the dirt when she was three days old,
[2:26]and slept there for the next six or seven weeks of her life.
[2:30]So you could say that she was born into the soil of her homeland, then she was pretty tough.
[2:35]Our lives came together when she was two years old, and her mother died in that same cinder
[2:41]block house, giving birth to a baby brother.
[2:43]There was no doctor present.
[2:44]That's not uncommon in Haiti.
[2:46]I'm sure whatever went wrong could have been fixed if she were in an American hospital,
[2:50]and she'd be alive today, but she wasn't an American hospital, so she died.
[2:55]A little Chica was taken away that day, and was brought to us at our orphanage,
[3:00]and that began our life together.
[3:03]And for the next couple of years, Chica was the youngest child that we had,
[3:07]and the bossiest, and the brashes, and the bravest, and the loudest.
[3:11]And she told all the other kids where they could go, and what line to stand in,
[3:16]and when they could eat, and everything, and she was just at the light,
[3:19]a very brave, brash, bold delight.
[3:23]And then when she was five years old, I got a phone call that there was something
[3:26]that mattered with her, that her face was drooping.
[3:29]And we got her to the only neurologist that was available in Port of Prince,
[3:35]and we got her to the only MRI machine in the entire country.
[3:38]And when the report came back, it said there was a mask on this child's brain,
[3:44]and whatever it is, there was no one in Haiti who can help her.
[3:47]And we scrambled to get her a visa and paperwork, and next thing you know,
[3:51]she was coming to America at age five.
[3:54]We thought we would end up having her for a couple of months while,
[3:59]our brilliant American surgeons would take out this mask, and then she'd be okay,
[4:03]and she'd go back and live amongst the kids in Haiti, and she never went home.
[4:08]And she ended up staying with us and becoming our daughter,
[4:12]and for two years we travel around the world with her, trying to find a cure.
[4:16]And the book finding Chica is the story of that journey to find a cure,
[4:21]but instead finding something else which is a family.
[4:24]And all the ways that we had our eyes opened as a couple who did not have children,
[4:31]and were in their late 50s, suddenly had a little five-year-old precocious girl who didn't look
[4:36]like them, didn't talk like them, didn't come from them, but was every bit our little girl.
[4:41]And I hope it's an inspiring, you know, uplifting kind of story, even in the light of what turned
[4:49]out to be a sad event in the end.
[4:53]It is an inspiring story, heartbreaking, but beautiful. One of the things I found really
[4:58]interesting was your relationship with Miss Janine, your wife, Janine, and how you had gone through
[5:03]a period of time where you didn't actively want to have kids, and you kept putting it off,
[5:07]and putting it off until when you did one kids it became impossible to do so.
[5:12]And I feel like there was a lot of beating yourself up in this book about wishing you could go back
[5:16]and doing it again. Do you think you would feel differently if you knew that it wasn't your timing?
[5:22]I feel like you kept thinking if I had just known earlier things would be so different.
[5:26]Yeah. Well, I think if all of us got to live our life through the prism of our later days,
[5:33]we'd all be a lot smarter. I want to be clear that it was me, not my wife, who delayed having
[5:39]children, and it was me, not my wife who was afraid of the commitments, and she wanted kids,
[5:44]and we didn't get married until our very late 30s. And so, and even after we got married,
[5:50]I kind of delayed. I did that thing like, well, you know, we should be married first for a couple
[5:54]years and then we'll have, and I don't think we realize how late in life that is to try to have kids,
[6:00]and then by the time we did try, it was too late and it didn't happen. And so we sort of settled
[6:05]into this role of aunt and uncle because we have 15 nieces and nephews. And so we became that
[6:11]and an uncle who took the kids for weekends and took the kids on some vacations and helped celebrate
[6:16]the birthdays and on Christmas Eve would go over and bring all the presents. But then on Christmas
[6:20]morning, there was nobody in the house, you know, and that was us for all those years. And I
[6:25]I think my wife, you know, bravely and very am or believed kind of dealt with it and said, all
[6:30]right, well, that's just not to be. But the fact is, I was more at fault for that than she was,
[6:37]for many years, until we took over the orphanage and until Chica came to live with us,
[6:41]that was this big empty spot in in our lives. And then it was filled in a most remarkable way,
[6:48]not a usual way, but a remarkable way. So Chica came to you in the beginning of the
[6:53]book. She's one of the characters really, not just in the past, but as you're writing it,
[6:57]and a lot of the book is describing your active writing this book, how it's difficult for you to
[7:02]write. It's very personal. And yet Chica kept coming into the room, literally, while you were
[7:07]writing. Can you tell me more about that experience? Well, I knew that, first of all, when you write a
[7:12]book like this, you don't want people to be scared of it. Like, oh, I can't read a book about a
[7:16]child who dies. It's too sad. It's too sad because then they would be dismissing and missing a great
[7:20]story. But I understand the feeling. And so right from the very first page, you know that she died
[7:26]already. It's not one of those books that, as you go along, she's getting sick or it's not like that at
[7:31]all. But then I also, you know, she died because I say that she died, but yet she's back. And
[7:39]Chica would always come back. It would always come downstairs with me in the morning because I
[7:44]get up early and she got up early. And I wanted to let my wife sleep because the day was hard
[7:50]and so Chica would come down with me and we'd sit in my office and I'd give her
[7:54]a magic marker or a pad or a doll or whatever. And I would try to write my books. And she would
[7:59]sit at my feet and I'd say, you know, you have to be quiet. And of course, two minutes, she'd say,
[8:04]you know, can I have another market? Can I have a pad? What are you doing? What are you writing about?
[8:08]So and her dialogue and her conversation was so much a part of who she was. She was so
[8:14]funny and she butchered the English language in such a way that was so endearing that I thought,
[8:19]I've got to make this a conversation. So I wrote it that she's back and she's saying to me,
[8:24]well, when are you going to start writing about me? And of course, I have been delaying doing
[8:29]that because I was kind of dealing with my grief and not sure how to do it. And she kind of
[8:34]coaxes me through it. And so the whole book is a conversation with her. And that's really,
[8:39]if you really want to know what our relationship was, that it was a verbal relationship. Yes,
[8:43]we played physically and I lifted her and carried her and all that. But first and foremost,
[8:47]it was the way she communicated and I thought that would be the best way to tell it in the book.
[8:51]And I love how on Instagram, you've been showing all these videos of you with Chica and
[8:56]you know, songs and lullabies and all the rest of it. That's pretty close to how it is in the book.
[9:00]Yeah, I did. I was like, oh, I feel like I heard each other. Yeah, yeah.
[9:04]In the book, you also referenced time that you spent with Maury from your famous book,
[9:08]Tuesdays with Maury. And now he had told you that his last month's quote proved to be the most
[9:12]vibrant and like in them to the brilliant colors of a dying leaf. And now when you go through this
[9:17]with Chica's illness, I was wondering, did you see that same sort of vibrancy in the
[9:22]waning days of her life? Or do you think that it only comes with a wisdom of old age?
[9:27]Yeah, I think it's different with a child. You know, there are several things that were different
[9:32]and several things that were the same with Tuesdays with Maury. Ironically, it was 20 years to the
[9:38]week that I found out that Maury had ALS that I found out that Chica had, D-I-P-G, this terrible
[9:46]stage four brain tumor. 20 years to the week. You're going to have to make that a vacation week for me.
[9:51]Yes. Right. At least every 20 years. Right. Every track I find. Yeah. And with Maury, you know, I sat alongside
[9:59]a dying...
[10:00]older man and learned a tremendous amount of lessons about my life and as it turned out other
[10:05]people's life. With Chica, I didn't so much sit alongside as play alongside and carry alongside
[10:12]and travel alongside, but it was still time spent with what turned out to be a dying little girl
[10:17]and also had my eyes open and illuminated and learned so many things that I tried to put in the book
[10:22]in seven sort of lessons, one for each year that she lived on earth. The difference was with
[10:28]Mori, I never felt like I was supposed to save him. Sorry. And would Chica, would Chica
[10:36]I did? No, it's okay. No, it's heartbreaking. No, it's heartbreaking. It's just,
[10:41]well, that was a difference. You know, when I didn't save her, then I felt like I had failed and
[10:48]for a long time I had to fight that. Whereas with Mori, I felt well, it was inevitable and he was 78
[10:53]and he knew it was coming and he accepted it. So she could didn't know what was coming.
[10:59]That was her blessing, you know. And we didn't spend any of the two years that we had together
[11:05]talking about Chica, what do you view learned about life now that you know you're going to die?
[11:09]She didn't have any idea that she was going to die and we kept it that way. And I'm glad that we did.
[11:14]I know there are some parents who deal with these situations who feel like transparency is the most
[11:19]important thing and explain to the kid why they're going to the hospital and explain what cancer
[11:23]is and explain what a tumor is. And I fully respect that position, but I didn't do it and I
[11:29]wouldn't do it. I wanted Chica to remain the beautiful child that she was. And so we turned it into
[11:34]just childhood trips and childhood adventures and childhood, whatever. And the few times in her life
[11:40]that she asked, why are we going to the doctor? I would say, well, he's going to help you
[11:45]in a walk better or he's going to help you feel better and then we'll go back to Haiti. It was
[11:49]always when can I go back to Haiti. And that's, you know, until she kind of lost her ability to
[11:54]speak and awareness of, you know, which is one of the byproducts of this disease, she was a child
[12:00]and she was hopeful and she was optimistic. And that's the gift, I think, that we can give her.
[12:04]So there were many similarities between Maury, but there was that one big difference.
[12:11]You know, I know this goes with that saying it's impossible for parents to save their kids in
[12:16]these situations. I mean, that's one of the things about giving birth or adopting or falling in
[12:21]love with the child is as soon as you create the life or bring the life into your own, you know,
[12:27]it has a natural end. It's just a matter of when are you there to see it or not. It's like the
[12:31]must. Yeah. But I didn't want to be there to see it. And I didn't, you know, I wanted to go first.
[12:37]I know. And still the hardest part of it is like anniversaries of days that are her birthday where
[12:45]you say, okay, she could would have been, you know, 10 years old next year, January should be 10,
[12:52]you know, double digits. And it's always would have been, would have been going to school,
[12:57]would have been getting married, would have been going to college. Those are hard.
[13:01]But that's not to help thrust of the book. That's my kind of burden to bear. And you asked me
[13:07]so I answer because I'm happy to answer anything you asked me. But the book really celebrates
[13:13]and in fact towards the end, I say this very clearly. There are a lot of ways that families can
[13:19]come together. The traditional way, the adoptive way, the blended families in your 50s and a kid
[13:27]who comes up from Haiti and joins you from an orphanage. But no matter how families come together
[13:32]and no matter how they ultimately come apart, this is true. You can't lose a child. And we did not lose
[13:40]a child. We were given a child. And it's on that optimistic note that I wrote the book and I don't
[13:48]want anybody to think that I want sympathy or anybody feel sorry for us. We were given a child.
[13:54]And it was the best gift ever. And whether your child lives to outlive you or only lives a
[14:01]couple of years, you know, there are kids with the IPG who get it at 400 dead at 4.5. She got
[14:06]out of 5 and lived till 7. That's a miracle in the IPG community. So it was a gift. It still is.
[14:14]Oh, I'm so sorry. I don't feel sorry for you. I just feel your pain.
[14:21]Yeah. Well, I just messed her in that tall. You know, when I talk about her. But I like talking
[14:27]about her. Do you feel that writing about her helped? Do that help you process it? I know you
[14:33]came down with all sorts of physiological symptoms as you were trying to write about it.
[14:37]Yeah, that was weird. You know, I thought it would be very cathartic. And I found it to be
[14:41]kind of cathartic when I began it and all these conversations. And because I could write what she
[14:46]would say, you know, or how she would sing, you know, doe, a deer, an e-mail, deer. And that's
[14:52]no just female. What? Female, not e-mail. No, it's my mouth. I can say what I want. You know, that's
[15:00]how she would her logic. And I put those in or what she told me once. She started singing super
[15:06]califragt. I could still see her because I have the video. She started singing super califragt.
[15:09]Alyssic expiado. And she had a pencil in the desk. And then she banged her pencil. She said,
[15:15]now you sing it. I said, you want me to sing it? You sing it. I said, how does it go? And she looked
[15:21]at me with the most exasperated face like, you don't watch Mary Poppins before. Are you crazy?
[15:27]You know, like, like, because you couldn't imagine a world in which everybody didn't know all
[15:32]the words of Mary Poppins. So recreating those conversations. And, you know, that was joyous in
[15:38]its own way. But you're right. I did get sick quite sick. And I thought quite frankly that I was
[15:44]having a stroke multiple. I would get dizzy in my right side would go numb and couldn't feel my
[15:50]feed in my cheek. And at one point they raised me to the hospital and took all these tests. And
[15:57]ultimately, it was determined that it was grief combined with a lot of dehydration and too much
[16:02]coffee. And, you know, overcaffeinization. And so they said, you need to sort of cut this out for a
[16:08]while. And they said, it's not going to go away right away. It's going to stay with you for,
[16:12]you know, probably another three to six months. Even if you stop coffee and even if you
[16:17]I'd rate and even if you sleep. How much coffee are we talking? Oh, I had like 10 cups of
[16:21]10 cups. Okay, fine. I don't feel better. Now I don't have any. Not totally, I'm totally off
[16:27]caffeine, totally off all of it. I don't even have decaf coffee or a decaf tea, just nothing. And so
[16:34]she helped me in that way. But it did stick around for a while until I finished the book. And my
[16:38]wife was so much smarter than I was because she said, this isn't, you know, I had a cheesy KG
[16:45]MRIs of my brain. I had a carotid artery testing name everything. And she said, they're not
[16:50]going to find anything. You're going to be okay. And I said, well, then what is this? She said,
[16:54]it's grief. And I said, no, no, no, I put all that beside behind me already. You know, it's been a year
[17:01]year and a half. She said, Mitch, you loved her, you know, and that was about it. And she was
[17:08]right. Of course, she's right about most things. And, you know, in a certain way, I don't mind
[17:13]paying a physical price for having to write this story because, you know, that's a price of loving
[17:18]the child that I'm okay with. That is, Mr. Dean, feel about the book. Do you feel like it helped
[17:23]her? Like did she help you read along with it? Or was it too painful? I feel like it would be such
[17:27]a pain. I mean, I don't know. Yeah. All my books, my wife makes me read to her. She doesn't send
[17:32]her read them. She makes me read them out loud. She seems to enjoy that more. And in this particular
[17:38]case, it was tough. It was a lot of tears. But you know, there were a few things she asked me to
[17:42]take out, which I did. But it's very, it was critical for me that she was on board with
[17:47]every word of this because this is as much her story as it is mine. It's a story about two of us
[17:53]and our marriage. And a whole chapter of one of the seven lessons that Chika kind of left behind
[18:00]all has to do with her and how you understand your partner, your spouse, so differently once a
[18:06]child comes in. And I was so stupid when I was younger, younger man. And I worried about, oh,
[18:12]we have a child, you know, it's going to take away from me and she'll probably spend all her time
[18:16]with the kid. And I'm going to kind of, it's going to be two against one and all those silly things
[18:21]you worry about. And once Chika came into our life, not only was it not that, but I so appreciated,
[18:29]I saw this whole other side of my wife that I never got a chance to see this nurturing maternal side
[18:35]is the singing lullabies to Chika and walking her into the bathroom and shutting the door
[18:40]on me and saying, privacy, please, that's what Chika would say. Privacy, please, you know, because
[18:45]that's girls do that and men have to wait and, you know, just Chika would take her hair and put it
[18:51]over her own head because Chika and my wife has long dark hair. And she'd say, Mr. Mitch,
[18:56]but she didn't. I have the same hair, you know, and I knew she was trying to like look like her
[19:00]and be like her. And it was so lovely, you know, and so wonderful to see my wife blossom like that.
[19:08]I just felt bad like, why didn't we do this sooner, you know, why? Why was I so stupid and selfish
[19:14]when we were younger and, you know, I'm so glad that even though it was for a brief period of time,
[19:20]I got to see that and she got to have that. And she has it now with all our 52 kids, you know,
[19:25]so it's a lot. But yeah, you know, she was so all of which is to say she's okay with it. She
[19:31]cries a lot. She doesn't come on these book tour things. It's too hard for her. She doesn't come
[19:35]listen to me talk or whatever. It's too hard for her. But but she's good. She wants like I knew,
[19:41]she wants the world to know what Chika was and wants her to live on. And of course,
[19:45]all the profits from this book go to the orphanage, you know, I don't take anything. And so
[19:50]we know that, you know, if people buy this book and find an audience here around the world,
[19:55]that's only going to help the kids, you know, and that'll be Chika's sort of
[20:00]legacy to our brothers and sisters,
[20:01]and they were all her brothers and sisters.
[20:03]I mean, we don't distinguish between blood relatives
[20:06]at the orphanage there.
[20:07]Once you're in, these are your brothers and sisters for life,
[20:10]and I know she'd like to help them.
[20:12]How did you get involved?
[20:15]I know you have so many charities that you support,
[20:17]but you don't just support charities.
[20:19]You are down there in Haiti, hands-on,
[20:22]like actually doing such good work
[20:24]and helping so many people, all these kids and all of this.
[20:28]Is it, is giving back to something
[20:29]that has always been important to you or?
[20:32]No, I have to be honest with you.
[20:34]It wasn't.
[20:35]I was very selfish, really, through my 20s,
[20:38]and into my 30s.
[20:39]I think it was more when I sat with Maury
[20:43]and he kind of admonished me a little bit
[20:45]to that degree.
[20:46]He said, what do you do for your community?
[20:47]I said, what do you mean?
[20:48]So a charity is, what do you do for your community?
[20:50]I said, I write checks.
[20:51]He said, anybody come right to check.
[20:53]You've been given a voice and a megaphone
[20:57]and you need to use it to do more
[21:00]than just a grand-dise yourself.
[21:02]And so I started my first charity, 1995,
[21:06]the year that I visited Maury.
[21:07]And I have nine charities that I operate.
[21:10]I don't support them.
[21:11]I operate them.
[21:12]Right, I shouldn't.
[21:12]No, I don't not correct any of them.
[21:14]I'm just saying, there are many that I support,
[21:16]but those nine I operate in Detroit.
[21:20]They're an umbrella called say Detroit.
[21:22]Haiti was an accident.
[21:23]I mean, it just went after the earthquake
[21:25]to help out a local pastor who said
[21:27]it is orphanage had been destroyed.
[21:28]And he couldn't get a phone call through.
[21:31]So I helped arrange a small little plane
[21:33]and decided to go on this little plane
[21:36]to go see what was going on in Haiti
[21:38]just a couple weeks after the earthquake,
[21:39]which was all over the news.
[21:41]And then I think, like seeing Maury on television
[21:45]and being somehow drawn to go see him,
[21:47]that was somehow meant to be in my life.
[21:49]And when I landed in Haiti and the things that I saw
[21:53]and the people all covered with white dust
[21:55]and bleeding in the street and rubble
[21:57]and every building collapsed and crushed
[22:00]and people weeping and crying and begging
[22:03]and drinking water out of dirty puddles
[22:05]because there was nothing the other way to get water.
[22:07]And then this orphanage, which hadn't been destroyed
[22:10]but was overrun and children sleeping in the dirt
[22:14]and begging for a cup of rice, you know, never leaves you.
[22:18]And you realize this is an hour away from Miami,
[22:21]you know, on an airplane.
[22:24]I can be here quickly.
[22:26]And I just began again involved.
[22:28]I bought down a bunch of guys from Detroit
[22:29]and we made nine separate trips with all the,
[22:33]there were roofers and plumbers and contractors,
[22:35]you know, Detroit, that's what we do.
[22:36]And they bought all this stuff
[22:38]and we built the first showers and toilets
[22:40]for a kitchen, for a dining room, for school,
[22:43]on this place and we really built it up.
[22:45]And while we were doing that,
[22:47]the pastor admitted to me that he didn't have any money
[22:49]to operate it.
[22:50]We were building all this stuff
[22:51]but he wasn't gonna be able to feed the kids
[22:53]or hire anybody.
[22:55]And in one of those moments that, you know,
[22:58]you look back and you're like,
[22:59]you say, why did I do that?
[23:01]I said to him, well, I could probably operate it.
[23:04]I operate charities in Detroit.
[23:05]It's probably pretty similar, which it isn't.
[23:09]And he basically said, praise Jesus, how do you?
[23:12]And he handed it over
[23:13]and I've been operating it ever since.
[23:15]And he's passed away since.
[23:17]And, you know, it goes on 10 years next year
[23:20]and I'm there every month and I'll be the rest of my life.
[23:23]This is never gonna stop.
[23:24]Those 52 kids are my charge and I'll raise them
[23:28]and make sure that they're all college educated.
[23:31]My oldest two are already in college in the States.
[23:33]One is premed, he's 4.0.
[23:36]I'm sounding like a proud Papa now, but I am proud.
[23:39]And he'll go back and all of them know
[23:41]when they're finished, they'll go back to Haiti.
[23:43]First, they go to the orphanage
[23:44]and they spend two years there
[23:46]doing whatever it is that they train to do for us.
[23:49]So if he becomes a doctor, he'll be our doctor.
[23:51]We have one through one through culinary school
[23:53]and now he's our cook.
[23:54]And, you know, so they have to,
[23:56]and they know how to have to give back.
[23:57]But then after that, they'll go into the country
[24:00]and make their own country better.
[24:01]Maybe one day put us out of business.
[24:03]That would be nice, you know, until then,
[24:06]they know what they have to do.
[24:08]So I have to ask you a little about your writing.
[24:10]You're one of the most successful writers of all time,
[24:13]the number one memoir of all time.
[24:15]What is your secret?
[24:16]What do you think it is about your writing
[24:19]that people respond to and connect with?
[24:22]Well, I don't know that it's a secret
[24:25]and I don't know that the success
[24:27]of those books is necessarily tied to my writing,
[24:30]but I think the reason that people respond
[24:34]or have responded to my books is that
[24:37]I tried from Tuesdays with Mauryan.
[24:40]And I think I did it with Tuesdays with Mauryan.
[24:41]Maybe subconsciously, I'm sure it was subconsciously
[24:44]and I never written a book like that before.
[24:47]But I kept saying to myself,
[24:48]is this about me or is this of some use to somebody else?
[24:52]And any time the answer was,
[24:54]now it's more about you, I took it out.
[24:56]And any time I thought that there was something
[24:58]that was abuse or somebody else, I left it in.
[25:02]And what happened with Tuesdays with Maury was,
[25:05]I think, because that was a tiny book.
[25:07]I mean, nobody wasn't supposed to be anything.
[25:09]I just wrote it to pay his medical bills.
[25:11]And I was in New York here,
[25:13]going from publisher to publisher to publisher.
[25:15]And every one of them said no, boring,
[25:17]your sports writer, nobody's interested in that.
[25:20]It's too depressing.
[25:21]I mean, I would have given it up
[25:23]if it wasn't for that fact,
[25:24]I was trying to pay his medical bills.
[25:25]I was, I had so much negativity.
[25:27]It didn't seem like a good idea to anybody.
[25:30]One publisher took it, gave us the money,
[25:32]which I gave to Maury three weeks before he died.
[25:35]That was all supposed to be,
[25:36]just the way to pay his bills.
[25:38]And I wrote the book and it came out,
[25:39]they printed 20,000 copies and we thought,
[25:43]that's that and we'll be,
[25:44]I'll have most of them in the trunk of my car
[25:46]for the rest of my life,
[25:47]I'll be driving around,
[25:48]giving them out to people.
[25:49]And then it just found an audience
[25:51]and people just handed it to one another
[25:53]and handed it to one another.
[25:54]And I think the reason they handed it to one another
[25:57]was what I just told you was,
[25:59]there's something in it for them.
[26:01]And they would come up to me and say,
[26:04]oh, let me show you picture of Maury.
[26:07]Or they would come up to me and say,
[26:08]oh, I'm just like you.
[26:09]I was working way too hard
[26:10]and all that and you were honest about how you
[26:12]kind of were a bit of a jerk
[26:14]and two self-absorbed and I kind of feel that way too.
[26:19]So they found themselves in that book,
[26:21]either through me or through Maury or both.
[26:24]And I learned something from that,
[26:25]that that's a good way to tell a story
[26:28]that people are going to hang on to for a while.
[26:31]If it makes them feel something about themselves.
[26:35]If you want to tell a story
[26:36]and it just makes you feel something about yourself,
[26:38]you can publish it and people may get it initially,
[26:42]but nobody's necessarily going to say to someone else,
[26:45]oh, I got you this book as a present.
[26:46]I think it'll help you
[26:47]or you really like it or there's a message in this.
[26:50]And so I tried in all my successive books to do that.
[26:54]So the five people you meet in heaven
[26:56]was based on a story that happened to my uncle
[27:00]about when he died.
[27:01]And one of those near-death experiences
[27:03]and rose above the bed and saw his dead relatives waiting
[27:07]for him at the edge of the bed
[27:08]and came back to life and later told me about it.
[27:11]And I thought, wow, that's kind of interesting
[27:13]that maybe people are waiting for you
[27:16]when you go to heaven.
[27:17]What if they're not all your relatives?
[27:18]What if they're somebody you just met for five minutes?
[27:20]But all of the lessons in that book
[27:23]were things that other people can relate to, not me.
[27:25]It wasn't about me and my uncle.
[27:27]It was about when you feel you're in nobody.
[27:30]There's no such thing as a nobody, everybody matters.
[27:33]So that became the point of that book.
[27:34]And all the successive books that I wrote,
[27:36]I always tried to think, well, what's in this for the reader?
[27:39]Or is it just something interesting to me?
[27:42]And maybe that's why they gravitate to them.
[27:45]To be honest, I'm probably the last person
[27:47]you should ask that question too,
[27:48]because I don't actually buy my own books.
[27:51]I write them.
[27:53]So why did you like them if you read them?
[27:57]What was the appeal of them to you?
[27:59]Because it's just so open and honest and relatable
[28:03]with a sense of humor.
[28:04]And it speaks to the very essence.
[28:06]I mean, I'm a mother, the idea of losing you always wonder,
[28:10]was it like you take us through what it's like as a guide
[28:15]without preaching in any way you inspire and connect.
[28:20]And I think that's just beautiful.
[28:22]Well, thank you.
[28:23]That's very high praise.
[28:25]I appreciate that.
[28:26]It's true.
[28:27]Thank you.
[28:27]Anyway, but I had to ask you, because how could I not ask you?
[28:31]Well, right here is podcast.
[28:33]Oh, yeah, you want a book podcast you should ask.
[28:36]Well, thank you so much for taking the time.
[28:38]And I wish you all the best.
[28:40]And I'm sure you're going to be mobbed by people
[28:43]with people who are showing you pictures of more easy.
[28:45]I'd be happy to.
[28:47]I'd be happy, too, because that would mean that her story
[28:50]is being read, and that inspires other people
[28:53]to hold their children tight and realize
[28:56]the preciousness of them.
[28:57]Then I will have done something worthwhile.
[28:59]And so Chica already did.
[29:01]So it's my turn.
[29:02]And I hope that our time together inspires people.
[29:06]You absolutely done something worthwhile in some ways.
[29:09]Thank you.
[29:09]Thank you, Mitch.
[29:10]My pleasure.
[29:12]This episode has been sponsored by Book of the Month Club,
[29:15]book of themonth.com, Enter Code Zibi,
[29:17]to get your first book for $5.
[29:19]Thanks for listening to Moms Don't Have Time to Read books.
[29:21]You can follow me on Instagram at Moms Don't Have Time
[29:24]to Read Books.
[29:25]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound
[29:28]for the Sound Editing.
[29:29]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[29:31]for providing this fantastic intro and now trim music.
[29:34]Thanks for listening.
[29:35]You could always email me at zibiadzibiowans.com.