Mitch Albom

You know, it's a gift to be able to take care of children.

And when we lost Chica, I have to admit I was very angry at God and the world.

I thought, how can you take a seven-year-old, you know, what did she do?

And selfishly, you know, my wife and I didn't have children of our own.

And then we got involved with this orphanage and, of course, we got all these dozens of them around.

But then all of a sudden we had this one who was in our lives and she was sleeping in our bedroom.

And she lived for two years and we traveled around the world trying to find a cure and became a family.

And she died in our arms, in our bed.

You know, we held her as her final heartbeat disappeared.

I remember that vividly.

I remember that, you know, like it just happened.

And we got these two amazing years in our 50s to be parents of this beautiful, funny, loud, kind of obnoxious kid who was just so charming.

And we got to be, you know, her mom and dad for that period of time.

That's a gift.

And when I tried to look at the world that way, and I try to look at our kids now that way, and I certainly look at Nadi that way, then why would you not accept that gift?

As many times as it comes into your life, if it's one, if it's two, if it's a dozen, if it's 50 or 60 like we have there now, it's a gift to take care of children.

Well, yeah, I say that a lot when sometimes people come up to me and they go, Maury, can I ask you?

I go, I'm not Maury.

I was the stupid one, remember?

He was the smart one.