Melinda French Gates

So I always tell people, start in your backyard, right?

Find something local that you want to do or that you believe in.

But that's where I find hope.

And you are hopeful right now?

Very.

I am very, very hopeful.

Yes.

I think we are in a – don't get me wrong.

We are in a very difficult time right now in the United States and in the world.

But in the arc of time, I'm very hopeful, yes.

laying under the Christmas tree with my sister when we were little girls in our little quilted padded robes and after you know the whole house we'd all worked all day to decorate the house then we had all those days between then and Christmas where

At night, we'd get our jammies on, we'd get our little padded robes on, and we'd lay under the Christmas tree and just watch the tinkling and twinkling lights on the ceiling and bounce off the windows.

And it just was this, and we'd be sometimes head to head or shoulder to shoulder.

And it's just that, ah, that sort of like innocence of the world.

I just, I love that memory.

On NPR's Wildcard podcast, Melinda French-Gates on seeing her ex-husband Bill Gates' name in the latest Epstein files.

Watch or listen to that Wildcard conversation on the NPR app or on YouTube at NPR Wildcard.