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40ffac8
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Suddenly, details seemed extremely important. Details were something to grab on to, a way to insert myself into the story.
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Mitch Albom |
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1640a0f
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Your voice will come. We all go through the same thing. You cannot talk when you first arrive." He smiled. "It helps you listen."
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Mitch Albom |
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2cac1d8
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You say you should have died instead of me. But during my time on earth, people died instead of me, too. It happens every day. When lightning strikes a minute after you are gone, or an airplane crashes that you might have been on. When your colleague falls ill and you do not. We think such things are random. But there is a balance to it all. One withers, another grows. Birth and death are part of a whole.
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Mitch Albom |
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365d064
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Happiness in a tablet. This is our world. Prozac. Daxil. Xanax. Billions are spent to advertise such drugs. And billions are spent purchasing them. You don't even need a specific trauma, just 'general depression' is enough, or anxiety, as if sadness is as treatable as the common cold.
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Mitch Albom |
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89d0b55
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We move through places every day that would never have been if not for those who came before us. Our workplaces, where we spend so much time--we often think they began with our arrival. That's not true.
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Mitch Albom |
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ea8b589
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Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from the inside. We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harm we do, we do to ourselves. Forgive, Edward. Forgive...no one is born with anger. And when we die, the soul is freed of it. But now, here, in order to move on, you must understand why you felt what you did, and why you no longer need to feel it.' She touched his hand. 'You..
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Mitch Albom |
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3b7247b
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You marked the minutes," the old man said. "But did you use them wisely? To be still? To cherish? To be grateful? To lift and be lifted?"
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Mitch Albom |
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4f71d2f
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Once heaven is done with grandma, we'd like her back, thanks.
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lost-loved-one
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Mitch Albom |
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a34a4ee
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Did I lose you?" "Never."
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Mitch Albom |
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69ed349
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A mother's voice is like no other. We recognize every lilt and whisper, every warble or shriek.
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Mitch Albom |
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a93479e
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What in life can love not penetrate?
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Mitch Albom |
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246b2ae
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If we knew what comes next, we never would have worried.
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Mitch Albom |
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93ab10c
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After the Israelites safely crossed the Red Sea, the Egyptians chased after them and were drowned. God's angels wanted to celebrate the enemy's demise. God saw this and grew angry. He said, in essence, 'Stop celebrating. For they are my children,too.
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Mitch Albom |
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32ea0b3
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This is the story of a man named Eddie and it starts at the end, with Eddie dying in the sun. It may seem strange to start a story with and ending, but all endings are also beginnings. We just don't know it at the time.
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philosophical
inspirational
opening-lines
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Mitch Albom |
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02deb43
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It was sad, the imbalance of it all. Why do kids assume so much from one parent and hold the other to a lower, looser standard?
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Mitch Albom |
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cb45e9b
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Sometimes I think the greatest talent of all is perseverance.
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Mitch Albom |
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dbc9b5c
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It is never too late or too soon, the old man had said. It is when it is supposed to be.
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Mitch Albom |
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692b3e6
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People don't die because of loyalty." They don't?" She smiled. "Religion? Government? Are we not loyal to such things, sometimes to the death?" Eddie shrugged. Better," she said, "to be loyal to one another." --
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Mitch Albom |
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92e8a6c
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All parents damage their children. IT cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair. The damage done by Eddie's father was, at the beginning, the damage of neglect... All parents damage their children. This was their life together. Neglect. Violence. Silence. And now, someplace beoynd death, Edd..
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Mitch Albom |
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02414f7
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You don't miss things. You miss people.
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Mitch Albom |
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2302ab5
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Because when the world quiets to the sound of your own breathing, we all want the same things: comfort, love, and a peaceful heart.
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Mitch Albom |
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1c7c352
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We fear loneliness, Annie, but loneliness itself does not exist. It has no form. It is merely a shadow that falls over us. And Just as shadows die when light changes, the sadness can depart once we see the truth." "What's the truth?" Annie asked. "That the end of loneliness is when someone needs you." The old woman smiled. "And the world is so full of need."
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Mitch Albom |
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4674b3c
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If you've found meaning in your life, you don't want to go back. You want to go forward. You want to see more, do more.
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Mitch Albom |
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eeb198b
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Don't get too attached to anything.
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Mitch Albom |
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17a65e5
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He almost told her everything right then, that very moment. But you grab a moment, or you let it pass. He let it pass.
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Mitch Albom |
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ab5e87f
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People are only mean when they're threatened, and that's what our culture does...And when you get threatened, you start looking out only for yourself. You start making money a god. It is all part of this culture.
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Mitch Albom |
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f0c13e1
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As children grow, they gravitate to their fates.
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Mitch Albom |
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75d5d09
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You humans are always locking each other away. Cells. Dungeons. Some of your earliest jails were sewers, where men sloshed in their own waste. No other creature has this arrogance--to confine its own. Could you imagine a bird imprisoning another bird? A horse jailing a horse? As a free form of expression, I will never understand it. I can only say that some of my saddest sounds have been heard in such places. A song inside a cage is never a..
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Mitch Albom |
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0387433
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If you're always battling against getting older, you're always going to be unhappy, because it will happen anyhow.
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Mitch Albom |
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6e19515
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This is a story about a family and, as there is a ghost involved, you might cal it a ghost story. But every family is a ghost story. The dead sit at out tables long after they have gone.
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Mitch Albom |
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8a75a2f
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At that moment i felt lonelier than i'd ever felt before, and that loneliness seemed to squat in my lungs and crush all but my most minimal breathing. There was nothing left to say. Not about this. Not about anything.
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Mitch Albom |
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fccd5c2
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When you're in bed, you're dead
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Mitch Albom |
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1019890
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Each of us was in your life for a reason. You may not have known the reason at the time, and that is what heaven is for. For understanding your life on earth.
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Mitch Albom |
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37e96b0
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Had he known his death was imminent, he might have gone somewhere else. Instead, he did what we all do. He went about his dull routine as if all the days in the world were still to come.
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Mitch Albom |
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aead461
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That kind of love - the kind you realize you already have by the life you've created together - that's the kind that lasts.
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Mitch Albom |
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b73f14d
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Tell me about your family," I said. And so she did. I listened intently as my mother went through each branch of the tree. Years later, after the funeral, Maria had asked me questions about the family - who was related to whom - and I struggled. I couldn't remember. A big chunk of our history had been buried with my mother. You should never let your past disappear that way."
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family-tree
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Mitch Albom |
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5c91616
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She wasn't easy on me, don't get me wrong. She smacked me. She scolded me. She punished me. But she loved me. She really did. She loved me falling off a swing set. She loved me stepping on her floors with muddy shoes. She loved me through vomit and snot and bloody knees. She loved me coming and going, at my worst and at my best. She had a bottomless well of love for me.
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Mitch Albom |
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fe40d05
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This is part of what a family is about, not just love, but letting others know there's someone who is watching out for them. It's what I missed so much when my mother died--what I call your 'spiritual security'--knowing that your family will be there watching out for you. Nothing else will give you that. Not money. Not fame.
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life
love
truth
security
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Mitch Albom |
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b49d212
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Sometimes when you're losing someone, you hang on to whatever tradition you can.
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Mitch Albom |
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9986958
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Dor shook his head. "The phrase. What does it mean?" Sarah wondered if he was kidding. "Time flies? You know, like, time goes really fast and suddenly you're saying goodbye and it's like no time passed at all?" His eyes drifted. He liked it. "Time flies." "With you," she added."
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Mitch Albom |
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2b0fbe0
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Forgive yourself.
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Mitch Albom |
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04cf02d
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I worked because I could control it.
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Mitch Albom |
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2509a67
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We all know how to be a child.
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Mitch Albom |
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4943ce5
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By now, the morning sun was just over the horizon and it came at me like a sidearm pitch between the houses of my old neighborhood. I shielded my eyes. This being early October, there were already piles of leaves pushed against the curb--more leaves than I remembered from my autumns here--andless open space in the sky. I think what you notice most when you haven't been home in a while is how much the trees have grown around your memories.
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Mitch Albom |