The First Phone Call From Heaven by Mitch Albom Review

I’ve always been a fan of Mitch Albom. I’ve his The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Tuesdays with Morrie, Have a Little Faith: A True Story, For One More Day and now The First Phone Call From Heaven: A Novel. All of them have richly blessed my life in some form or another. If you read the reviews on these books on Amazon, you’ll see I’m not alone in that respect at all.

Christmas is only three days away! It’s so hard to believe that 2013 has gone by so quickly. This has been a roller coaster ride of a year for me from Del working outside the home all the way to us selling my childhood home. I have needed all the inspiration I can get my hands on all throughout the year to hang on at times.

When I found out Mitch had a new book on the market in November 2013, I knew I had to dip into my savings to get it because his books have ALWAYS left me feeling good about life and people in general. The First Phone Call from Heaven was no exception.

My mom left me her house with hopes of us moving into it or at the very least I’d rent it out. I told her point blank I couldn’t promise either of those things. In fact, I begged her to leave it to her best friend verses me. She didn’t listen. She told me that she didn’t want me to sell it.

However, I couldn’t afford to keep paying the mortgage, taxes, and general upkeep up the house. So, I had to put it up for sale. It’s been on the market for well over three years now. I finally got it sold, even though we had to take a huge loss. I weighed out the pros and cons of keeping it longer in hopes of obtaining a higher selling price, but in the end it was better to let it go.

I had actually signed the contract for the sale of the house in November (the same time this book came out.) It was almost like I was getting my phone call from my Mom via a book.

If you know me at all, you know I can’t stand talking on the phone, and I’ve never been much of an actual heart to heart talker in person. I’d much rather give you a handwritten letter or some other form of written communication than jabber in person.

I got that lovely trait from my Mom. She use to leave me notes all the time, and we never really discussed what was stated in the notes. Yet, we could carry on a full out war via notes, and in the end we reached our agreements. (Sometimes that note war would last a long time.)

The big message from the book was: “The end is not the end.” Plus the characters from heaven talked about what a grand place it is. They also talked about the fact that all those little grieves we have in our daily lives right now don’t really make a hill of beans in heaven. All the callers made certain those on Earth knew they were forgiven.

See, I took all of that to say that my Mom understands why I had to sell her house that she wanted to stay in our family for generations to come. I never had a strong love of my childhood home, and I never will regardless what is done to the house. I loved the property. I loved the neighborhood. I loved the neighbors. I can enjoy all the things I loved about it without owning the home.

So if I were to actually obtain a phone call from heaven from my Mom, then I would definitely feel confident that she would tell me that she understands and forgives me. She would be busting at the seams to tell me how grand it is. I still believe she’d tell me how much her and Lance, her horse, were enjoying their travels all throughout heaven.

What type of phone call would you expect from heaven?