Five People You Meet in Heaven

This isn't technically a book that I read when I was in the properly defined age group, but looking back at this book it is probably the book that has had the largest impact on my life, and had it been out when I was younger would have been a book that I would have read. I read this book after I had finished reading Tuesdays with Morie by the same author. Now I have read a lot of books in my life and I can't think of one that has had a more profound affect on me than The Five People you Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom.

It is the story of a man named Eddie who for almost his whole life was the maintenance man at an amusement park called Ruby Pier. The story starts with the end of Eddie's life on Earth and the beginning of his journey through heaven. The basic story wasn't what got to me, it was the lessons Eddie learns along the way as he meets the five people he was to meet in heaven.

Throughout the book we are introduced to people from his past, some he knew and some were just a glimpse in his life. They all had something that they had to teach Eddie about life. Each had a different lesson that Eddie needs to understand before he can move on in heaven.

The first person that Eddie meets was a member of the freak show his name was Joseph Corvelzchchik, and he was known as the "blue man" and I think that out of all the people Eddie meets he has the most thought provoking quotes. The blue man died when Eddie was a young boy. Eddie was playing catch with some friends and had run into the road in front of the car that the blue man was driving. The blue man managed to avoid hitting and killing Eddie, but subsequently had a heart attack and died from the anxiety of the close call.

Upon hearing this Eddie feels awful and asks why the blue man died instead of Eddie. The blue man assures him that it was okay and that everything happens for a reason. "There are no random acts. That we are all connected. That you can no more separate one life from another than you can separate a breeze from the wind" (Albom, 48). This was the first lesson for Eddie. That everything happens for a reason and that no life is a waste. "No life is a waste, the only time we waste is the time we spend thinking that we are alone." (50)

The next person that Eddie meets is his Sargent from the war. He tells Eddie about how he, the Sargent, died, and how that enabled the rest of the company to survive. He told Eddie that it had been him who had shot him, in order to save his life. Eddie had become convinced that he saw someone in a burning building, and to prevent Eddie from going in there and losing his life, the Sargent shot him in the leg.

The lesson that the Sargent had to teach Eddie was about sacrifice. "Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious you're not really losing it, you're just passing it on to someone else." (94) In other words, the Sargent sacrificed Eddie's leg to save his life, and he also sacrificed his life in order to preserve the lives of his men.

The third person, is one that Eddie never meet. Her name was Ruby and she was the woman that the pier he had grown up on was named after. Ruby told Eddie of her life and how the pier came to be. She told Eddie things that he had never known about his family and especially about his father's death. The lesson that she had to teach Eddie was about forgiveness. "No one is born with anger" (142) Ruby tells Eddie this as she is explaining that he needs to let go of his hatred for his father. That for him to move on he needs to figure out why he felt this way and to finally