♪ (ragtime music) ♪
- David, thanks for coming down.
We've got a very special Christmas wish for you.
You lost your wife, Brenda, a couple years ago to cancer.
- (sympathetically) Oh! - (David) Yes.
- (David) In January of 2011,
she found out she had stage four ovarian cancer.
- Oh, that's very sad.
- (David) And passed away. - That's intense.
- (DJ) You recently got engaged?
- I know this story. - (David) Yeah she has two kids.
I mean, I basically have four boys.
Had four boys-- a step-son and three of my own.
- (DJ) We told you we got a very special Christmas wish.
Recently, we received a letter
from one of Brenda, your first wife's friends.
And so, Colleen has that letter
and she's going to read you this letter from your wife, Brenda.
- Oh my.
- A lot of information's public.
- (Colleen) "Hello, my name is Brenda Schmitz.
When you are in receipt of this letter,
I will have already lost my battle to ovarian cancer.
Once my loving husband, David, had moved on in his life
and had met someone to share his life with again
to mail this letter to all of you at the station.
We have four boys: Carter, Josh, Justin, and my little Max."
- Wow.
- "No child as young as Max should lose his mother..."
- Ugh, it's just painful. - (Colleen) "It brings tears to my eyes.
I have a wish for David, the boys, and the woman
and her family if she has kids also.
First, for David's new lifelong partner,
a weekend of pampering in all aspects of her life.
Make her smile and know her efforts are truly appreciated from me."
- God, it chokes you up there.
- (Colleen) "For the family, a magical trip...
- Hard to watch.
- (Colleen) ... where they can all enjoy their company
and companionship as a family
and create those memories that will be with them forever.
Finally, the cancer doctors at Mercy Hospital
and nurses of Eighth South:
a night out full of drinks, food, and fun for all they do
everyday for the cancer patients they encounter.
When you wish upon a star, Brenda."
- Incredible wife he had.
(David weeps)
- (voice wavering) That's got to be really hard for him.
- It's emotional to listen to it.
- (DJ) What do you think? - Yeah, what do you think? God.
- (David) It's not surprising 'cause she's--
the last year and a half she's shown so many signs that she's there.
- (DJ) We want to grant Brenda's wish.
- Huh.
- (DJ) We are going to send you and your family
on a magical vacation for eight to Disney World.
- Oh... (softly) that's wonderful.
- (DJ) And just as Brenda wished,
Jane will be pampered with a relaxing massage.
Three coordinated food drops will be made on behalf of Brenda
for all the care, comforting, and hard work over at Mercy.
- Makes me wish I had known this woman.
- (DJ) All the best moving forward. - (David) Thank you. I'm in shock.
- Quite a Christmas present.
- That was great, what they did for him.
- One little letter can change how you look at the whole world.
- You know, when I first read about this, it made me cry.
This is worse, seeing it.
- (deep sigh) Heavy.
- All the things that we go around saying, that we don't mean to say,
and we say them anyway.
We hurt other people or whatever.
And then there's somebody like this, Brenda,
that comes along and reminds us who we really should be
and who we really are.
- Thanks guys, thanks for making me cry.
(movie reel clicks)
- (Finebros) So how does it make you feel after you watch something like that?
- Overall, and ultimately, it makes me feel very, very good about people.
- It's sad, but at the same time it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.
- It makes me wonder if I could be that big.
It humbles me. It really humbles me.
- For me, it brought back certain losses in my life.
- Well, I think we can all relate.
When I was 15, I lost my own mother from cancer.
And I know what it's like to lose a mom when you're fifteen years old.
Because my mom was the kind of mom that...
we were not just mother/daughter, but good pals.
She was... (sniffles) wonderfully outgoing
and I think a lot of my personality comes from her.
- (Finebros) What do you think of Brenda, the wife and mother who passed away,
just deciding to do this years later for her husband and family?
- It was a wonderful gesture.
- She had to really be something to write that letter.
- This is a holy woman. This is a woman with an unique soul.
- I think that just shows such love for the family.
- What amazes me the most is that she could be
so aware of, you know, down the road
and wanting something for him.
- That's pretty extraordinary. That's a lot of forethought.
Even the girl reading it had a hard time reading it
because who would not be touched by that kind of emotion
and that kind of circumstance.
That's pretty amazing.
- (Finebros) How do you think David's new wife, Jane,
feels getting these words of encouragement from the previous wife?
- Well that's a tough one because women could either be like,
"Excuse me? (sassy laugh) It's my turn now."
- I'm sure she was very touched.
- Everybody's going to be happier to have another person involved.
- It's hard to be a single parent and be dealing with kids and all, you know?
It's hard to have two parents and be dealing with kids.
- (Finebros) So this story has gone viral and has been on television news even.
What do you think it is that is connecting with people
so universally that this is being shared so much?
- Love. It's just love.
- Everyone shares death.
- I think the humanity of it all, you know,
of a radio station doing this for a stranger.
- The bottom line is there's plenty of love in this world.
We complain about this earth, but it's a pretty good life.
- I think it's honestly that feeling of, "Could I be that generous?
Could I be that loving? Could I be that welcoming to someone?"
Could I face death that well?"
It appeals to people because it makes you reflect.
- Seeing this gives them permission
to let out their emotions and to not hide so much.
Dear goodness, we hide too much of our goodness.
If you love somebody, tell them that you love them.
And this time of the year is evocative of that.
- (Finebros) This video and story is very universally loved,
but there have been some people criticizing it,
saying that they feel that it might not have been right
for the deceased wife to do something like this right when he had moved on,
that it could be manipulative or rehash old memories.
What do you think about that criticism? - Haters are haters.
- You can't put something like that together
if you've got a bad bone in your body.
I'm sorry, you just can't pull that off.
- Could be, and there's the conflict there.
- I thought about that, and I guess so-- people do think about it.
But to call it manipulative, you've got to get into someone's mind.
- Everybody's different and she thought that was the right thing to do.
And who are we, you know, to sit and criticize?
- (Finebros) Can we talk about how your view of life and death
changes as you become older?
- Well, when you're young, you just don't think
there's anything like death around. It's not going to happen to you.
- When you're younger, it's like it's somewhere in the distance.
You never even really think about it
and as you get older, it's like, "Well, it could be right around the corner."
- Mortality never hit me until I was in the 50's.
That's why these young kids, mortality doesn't strike them.
But that's why ObamaCare is in trouble.
"Health insurance? Hell no, I'm gonna live forever."
- When you get to the age when the first person passes away,
whether it's a friend or a relative... I was hit hard.
I lost almost all immediate family within two to three years.
Or whether it's a rap star, or rock star, or celebrity that you identify with.
It all of the sudden | changes your perception.
It's getting to the point now where I'm gonna--
we've talked about it with the other elders I know
and my friends and stuff,
that we're going to start losing each other in the next few years,
which is going to be very hard. But there's nothing we can do about that.
It's a beautiful and wonderful day, and I'm still here and it beats not being here.
- (Finebros) What's something that you wish
you could tell yourself when you were younger,
or tell young people today that they should be more aware of?
- I think the most important thing is to start reflecting really early.
- Don't worry over little things.
- Learn at an early age not to be a hoarder or a clutterer.
- The best times that you have are with your family or with your friends,
when you don't even have to be successful, it just has to be.
- All the problems, and all the bad stuff, somehow works itself out.
It might take longer than you want,
but it works itself out, so just move on to something new.
- (Finebros) So back to this video, the radio station,
every year, has this Christmas wish where they and local businesses
spend money to grant these wishes for people.
What do you think about the station for doing that?
- I think that's pretty good.
- I think that's very nice for the station to do something like that.
- Their hearts are in the right place. They scored high.
- I think the more of that, the better. The more the merrier.
- We all ought to work on granting people wishes.
I think, you know, you feel very good when you do that.
And I'm sure it gets the radio station good PR.
- (Finebros) And finally, what do you want to say to this family,
after now knowing their story, if they end up coming across this video?
- Thank you for sharing it and God bless you.
- Good luck with the new marriage and I hope
everything works out wonderfully,
and you have a nice new family.
- Stay positive in all their thinking because then they'll be able
to branch out and do the same thing that she did, maybe help others.
Giving is a great thing.
You don't have to worry about receiving, it's going to happen anyway.
Karma is karma.
- I would hope that as each of those children grow older,
that they become like a bit of their parents,
and carry that on to their children and to other people.
- Remember yesterday is a memory and tomorrow is a dream.
Today is your gift and that's why they call it "present".
(laughs) Live today.
(silence)