The Five People You Meet in Heaven
It’s strange to cry over a novel in the early hours of the morning, but that’s what I did when reading Mitch Albom’s The Five People You Meet in Heaven. This is what the blurb on the back cover says:
“All endings are also beginnings. We just don’t know it at the time…”
On his eighty-third birthday, Eddie, a lonely war veteran, dies in a tragic accident trying to save a little girl from a falling cart. With his final breath, he feels two small hands in his - and then nothing. He awakens in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a lush Garden of Eden but a place where your earthly life is explained to you by five people who were in it. These people may have been loved ones or distant strangers, Yet each of them changed your path forever.
What got me crying? It was the part of the story where Eddie meets his wife Marguerite. She died before him and she’s one of the five people he meets in heaven, one of the five people who explains his life to him.
Even in his worst moments, Eddie had never stopped loving Marguerite, nor she him. And she’s young again when they meet in heaven. He’d felt his loss every day of his life after she’d died, and all he wants to do is to be reunited with Marguerite.
They review what they’d had togetherand what they’d missed. They’d not been able to have a longed-for child because she’d been severely injured when her car swerved into the central barrier of the highway when a bottle dropped by drunken teenagers from an overbridge had shattered the windscreen. She’d been on a mission of love to rescue Eddie on his birthday from a racetrack where he was gambling away the money they’d been saving to have the child.
Their love had faltered, but it had never disappeared. And it revived as they grew older together. Eddie was desolate and lonely when she died, and to meet her again in heaven is his heart’s desire.
Well, that part of the story triggered thoughts and feelings about my [tag[love[/tag] for Erica and our lives together, what we’ve had together and what we’ve missed. In fact, we were talking this morning at breakfast about one relocation we both felt had been wrong - for ourselves and our children. If we could wind the clock back, and knowing what we know no, we wouldn’t do that again.
But that’s the rub, isn’t it? We do what we do, we make the decisions we make, without fully being able to foresee the consequences.
What really made me cry, though, was the fear of loss. How could I live if I lost the one who is closest to me, who knows me best, of whose love I have absolutely no doubt?
Albom’s book is written in a straightforward prose, no flowery language, and the characters are not particularly exalted or noble. But he writes about profound things, life, death, things that are matters of the human spirit.
It’s worth reading.
Technorati Tags: Mitch Albom, Heaven, life, death
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4 comments
“In fact, we were talking this morning at breakfast about one relocation we both felt had been wrong - for ourselves and our children. If we could wind the clock back, and knowing what we know no, we wouldn?t do that again.”
Barney, Many of us had done the same! How easy it is to look back and think what could it have been like if this or that move were not taken? Fate and predestination might be at play, often without our knowledge. Your feelings and thoughts are very touching. Thank you….
I understand your feelings too. I became tired of finding that connection to others suffering through novels. I went to the Internet looking for closer contact about a year ago. Now, through blogs, I find myself very connected (but not completely) to people who are real, who are suffering in situations I couldn’t have believed. They are in several countries. they all have their lives and their stories to tell. Of course it may be that parts are just as fictional as the novel you are reading. That doesn’t matter does it?
Nice to read ur thought. I finished this novel about 1 month ago. My brother loves it and he introduced it to me. Nice to read it and it made me remember the poem from a terminally ill young girl in a New York Hospital.
“SLOW DANCE
Have you ever watched kids on a merry-go-round?
Or listened to the rain slapping on the ground?
Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight?
Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?
You better slow down. Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short. The music won’t last.
Do you run through each day on the fly?
When you ask How are you? Do you hear the reply?
When the day is done do you lie in your bed
With the next hundred chores running through your head?
You’d better slow down Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short. The music won’t last.
Ever told your child, we’ll do it tomorrow?
And in your haste, not see his sorrow?
Ever lost touch, let a good friendship die
Cause you never had time to call and say,”Hi”
You’d better slow down. Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short. The music won’t last.
When you run so fast to get somewhere
You miss half the fun of getting there.
When you worry and hurry through your day,
It is like an unopened gift…. Thrown away.
Life is not a race. Do take it slower
Hear the music before the song is over.”
I used to rush for things and sometime forget to enjoy each drop of happiness in it. So I keep telling myself slow down, slow down and look around
Trust that you find your work with NSA is very interesting. Have a nice weekend! (It is now Friday everning in Vietnam)
I love the poem - so wise and truthful. Thank you for sharing it.
I’ve been asked to write a review of “The Five People You Meet in Heaven” for the UK Baha’i Journal. I hope others will want to read the novel as a result of the review.
Thanks for your enquiry about my work with the NSA. It’s wonderful to have the privilege of workiing for the National Assembly - and I love the work.
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