LAKELAND — Best-selling author and Detroit Free Press sports columnist Mitch Albom, 63, stumbled into becoming an expert on death and dying — and also on living life to its greatest potential — when he began a series of visits with his favorite Brandeis University professor, Morrie Schwartz, in 1995 as the man was dying from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
So who better to speak at The Chapters Health Foundation and The Hospice Women of Giving’s seventh annual Seasons of Service Luncheon on May 12th at the Lake Mirror Auditorium? The luncheon benefits Good Shepherd Hospice.
“We are so thrilled to have Mitch join us this year,” explains Hospice Women of Giving founding member Cindy Sternlicht. “Mitch has a way of helping you see loss and heartache through a lens of gratitude and hope, sprinkled with a little bit of humor. I am confident his words will have a lasting impact for our guests.”
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Albom, 63, chatted with The Ledger on Wednesday afternoon, squeezing in an interview among his book writing, reporting for his sports column and handling the duties as CEO of the multiple charities he and his wife, Janine, founded after the success of “Tuesdays With Morrie” in 1997. He has since written nearly a dozen other books, including “The Five People You Meet in Heaven,” “For One More Day,” and his latest, “The Stranger in the Lifeboat,” about a group of people who encounter God as they struggle to survive. He has also written several sports books.
“I think all of us are getting divine guidance, we just don’t realize it,” Albom said when asked if he had ever had experienced that. “This latest book that I wrote, ‘The Stranger in the Lifeboat,’ was about what happens when you call out for God and suddenly God appears in front of you and says, ‘OK, I’m here. You asked for help. Here I am. Do you even believe it? Would you even believe it?’”
<story-pull-quote util-module-path="elements/story" author="Best-selling author and Detroit Free Press sports columnist Mitch Albom" text="I think all of us are getting divine guidance, we just don't realize it. This latest book that I wrote, 'The Stranger in the Lifeboat,' was about what happens when you call out for God and suddenly God appears in front of you and says, ‘OK, …….