The Five People You Meet in Heaven

By Mitch Albom

"All ending are beginnings. We just don't know it at the time..."

  From the author of the number one New York Times bestseller Tuesdays with Morrie comes this long-awaited follow-up, an enchanting, beautifully crafted novel that explores a mystery only heaven can unfold.   Eddie is a grizzled war veteran who feels trapped in a meaningless life of fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. As the park has changed over the years -- from the Loop-the-Loop to the Pipeline Plunge -- so, too, has Eddie changed, from optimistic youth to embittered old age. His days are a dull routine of work, loneliness, and regret.   Then, on his 83rd birthday, Eddie 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.   One by one, Eddie's five people illuminate the unseen connections of his earthly life. As the story builds to its stunning conclusion, Eddie desperately seeks redemption in the still-unknown last act of his life: Was it a heroic success or a devastating failure? The answer, which comes from the most unlikely of sources, is as inspirational as a glimpse of heaven itself.   In The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Mitch Albom gives us an astoundingly original story that will change everything you've ever thought about the afterlife -- and the meaning of our lives here on earth. With a timeless tale, appealing to all, this is a book that readers of fine fiction, and those who loved Tuesdays with Morrie, will treasure.   Albom has said that the book was inspired by his real life uncle, Eddie Beitchman, who, like the character, who was also a World War II veteran, who also died at 83, and also lived a life like that of the fictional character, rarely leaving his home city, and often feeling that he didn't accomplish what he should have. The Five People You Meet in Heaven is a tale of a life on earth. It’s a tale of life beyond it. It’s a fable about love, a warning about war, and a nod of the cap to the real people of this world, the ones who never get their name in lights.   Selling over 12 million copies in 38 territories and in 35 languages, The Five People You Meet in Heaven is the bestselling hardcover first-time novel ever.

 

My Story Review:

Reading this book made me realize many things in life that I took for granted. Although we really don't know what heaven look and feels like,  this gave me the idea of death and unanswered questions. In this story Eddie learned five lessons, that there are no random events in life and all people are connected, importance of people's willingness to make sacrifices for others, learn how to forgive, love will last forever, it is never lost in death and his life has a purpose and that is to protect the children at Ruby Pier through the safety of the rides. These are also lessons that we can apply in life.

"All endings are also beginnings. We just don’t know it at the time."

"Every life has one true-love snapshot."

"..But scenery without solace is meaningless."

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

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

“Lost love is still love. It takes a different form, that’s all. You can’t see their smile or bring then 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."