The Five People You Meet In Heaven.

I've just finished reading The Five People You Meet In Heaven, written by the same author who wrote Tuesdays With Morrie, Mitch Albom. Mitch talks about death once again, or should I say "afterlife"? This fable is one that changes your perception of heaven - you know, that "paradise", we always call it. Here's a quote from the book:

"People think of heaven as a paradise garden, a place where they can float on clouds and laze in rivers and mountains. But scenery without solace is meaningless."

How true. And therefore what this story tells us about heaven is this:

"... and that is what heaven is for. For understanding your life on earth."

When I come to think of it now, I do feel that heaven should be somewhat like that. You need to have understanding before you can have peace. And that's what happens to you when you go to heaven: To understand your life on earth, what you were there for and what you did during that time, before you experience eternal happiness. And I'll disclose the fact that the ending of the story was exactly like this. The protagonist found out what his life on earth was all about and finally, had that inner peace and joy he always wanted.

The five people the main character met in heaven represents 5 important lessons that we should all learn. Some of these lessons are repeated in Tuesdays With Morrie while some we are still oblivious to. Let me share with you the important quotes I have marked out...

The first person Eddie, the protagonist, meets in heaven is the blue man. I won't explain why he was blue but this person tells Eddie what heaven is all about and that our lives are all interconnected.

"The is the greatest gift God can give you: To understand what happened in your life. To have it explained. It is the peace that you have been searching for."


"Fairness does not govern life and death. If it did, no good person would ever die young."


"The human spirit knows, deep down, that all lives intersect. That death doesn't just take someone, it misses someone else, and in the small distance between being taken and being missed, lives are changed."


"Strangers are just family you have yet to come to know."


"No life is a waste. The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone."

The second person Eddie meets in heaven is his old time captain during the war. The captain teaches him about sacrifices.

"Sacrifice. You made one. I made one. We all make them. But you were angry over yours. You kept thinking about what you lost."


"You didn't get it. Sacrifice is a part of life. It's supposed to be. It's not something to regret. It's something to aspire to. Little sacrifices. Big sacrifices. A mother works so her son can go to school. A daughter moves home to take care of her sick father."


"Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you're not really losing it. You're just passing it on to someone else."

The third person Eddie meets in heaven is an old lady named Ruby. She teaches him about forgiveness and how we should forgive one another instead of keeping the pain inside.

"Better to be loyal to one another."


"Silence was his escape, but silence is rarely a refuge."


"Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from inside."


"We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harm we do, we do to ourselves."

The fourth person Eddie meets in heaven is his wife, Marguerite. She tells her husband about lost love, and how powerful it can be.

"Lost love is still love, Eddie. It takes a different form, that's all. You can't see their smile or bring them food or tousle their hair or move them around a dance floor. But when those senses weaken, another heightens. Memory. Memory becomes your partner. You nurture it. You hold it. You dance with it."


"Life has to end. Love doesn't."

The fifth person Eddie meets in heaven is a young girl called Tala. She tells of a very important lesson that sometimes when you think that the things you do or the job you have is meaningless, it probably isn't to others. Sometimes when you do things just for the sake of doing them, you actually play a very important role in the lives of others.

"I was sad because I didn't do anything with my life. I was nothing. I accomplished nothing. I was lost. I felt like I wasn't supposed to be there," Eddie said.

"Supposed to be there," Tala said.

"Where? At Ruby Pier?"

She nodded.

"Fixing rides? That was my existence?" He blew a deep breath. "Why?"

She tilted her head, as if it were obvious.

"Children," she said. "You keep them safe. You make good for me."

"Is where you were supposed to be," she said, and then she touched his shirt patch with a small laugh and added two words, "Eddie Main-ten-ance."