A story that begins with the end; A fiction that cuts through the heart - The Five People You Meet in Heaven is a story about Eddie's journey to heaven, as he meets the five people that will make him understand his life on earth.
Person 1 - Blue Man
Lesson 1 - "That 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."
The Blue Man, a sideshow worker at Ruby Pier, was unexpectedly connected to Eddie through one of life's most unfortunate moment - death. The first lesson, as the Blue Man tells, is that we are all connected, that one small act affects another in a totally unexpected manner, and that one story when seen in a different perspective may turn out to have a totally different ending. Reading this, I remember the series Touch, and how this thin red thread connects us all. We just don't realize it, and may never come to know how specifically, but we definitely are connected to each other, even though geographically apart, or even an era apart.
Person 2 - The Captain
Lesson 2 - "Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you're not really losing it. You're only passing it on to someone else."
The Captain - Eddie's Captain when he once served in war, was that one person who saved Eddie's life, not once but twice. The first instance was from a burning hut, and with a bullet shot through his leg - an act with a lifetime effect and memory. The second instance was from an explosion of a land mine that took the captain's life but saved his men's lives. Both of these remained unknown to Eddie until his death.
Having shared this so, the Captain had no regrets. He wasn't even sorry. The same goes with most sacrifices in life. The true sacrifices are the ones where something is given up for another's benefit without any second thought about what might be lost. Because as the Captain says so, it's not really lost but only passed on.
Person 3 - Ruby
Lesson 3 - "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."
Unlike the other people Eddie meets in heaven, Ruby is a person who has not really met Eddie in person while on earth. In fact, she lived in a time before Eddie's own time. Ruby is to whom the Ruby Pier (the pier where Eddie worked) was once dedicated to. Though unknown to each other, they were related and affected by the mere existence of one times ago. She was the one who teaches Eddie one of the most important lessons in life - letting go of anger, as she showed to him a story of his father that was again unknown to him.
Sometimes, it's easy to let our emotions take over. It's hard to simply contain it, and much harder to simply let go. But sometimes we also have to pause and take a look at how a certain emotion is ruling our life. And then maybe, that's when we'll realize how destructive some of them are, and how it will make life better if we can just let it slip away.
Sometimes, it's easy to let our emotions take over. It's hard to simply contain it, and much harder to simply let go. But sometimes we also have to pause and take a look at how a certain emotion is ruling our life. And then maybe, that's when we'll realize how destructive some of them are, and how it will make life better if we can just let it slip away.
Person 4 - Marguerite
Lesson 4 - "Lost love is still love, Eddie. It takes a different form, that's all."
Marguerite is Eddie's love - his one and only love. And when Marguerite died, Eddie somehow died too. He simply survived but he forgot to live.
They say that 'it's better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all.' And this is true. A love may be lost to death, to an opportunity, or to someone else. But that's still love. And simply losing it doesn't change that fact.
Person 5 - Tala
Lesson 5 - "Is where you were supposed to be."
Marguerite is Eddie's love - his one and only love. And when Marguerite died, Eddie somehow died too. He simply survived but he forgot to live.
They say that 'it's better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all.' And this is true. A love may be lost to death, to an opportunity, or to someone else. But that's still love. And simply losing it doesn't change that fact.
Person 5 - Tala
Lesson 5 - "Is where you were supposed to be."
Tala was the shadow in the earlier chapters - a shadow that somehow caused Eddie the pain he's carried through life. A shadow, now a person, was just a child who died in the fire, that Eddie tried to save. Tala, a small girl was the one who assures Eddie that while he may have lived his life thinking that life would have been much better somewhere else, he is actually where he is supposed to be - to serve his purpose well - to protect small children and keep them safe, even if he may have missed one during the war.
Many times in our life, we wonder and ask if we are right where we are supposed to be. Sometimes there are regrets, and the question "what could have been" and "if only" surfaces. We may not realize it but sometimes I guess we just have to trust that we are planted right where we can serve our purpose on earth. It may not be the purpose we have in mind, but by simply being where we are and simply doing what we do, we are already serving our life's purpose.
Many times in our life, we wonder and ask if we are right where we are supposed to be. Sometimes there are regrets, and the question "what could have been" and "if only" surfaces. We may not realize it but sometimes I guess we just have to trust that we are planted right where we can serve our purpose on earth. It may not be the purpose we have in mind, but by simply being where we are and simply doing what we do, we are already serving our life's purpose.
It was actually my second time to read this book. But just the same, I can't help the tears from flowing chapter to chapter, lesson to lesson, as stories once unknown on earth get revealed in heaven.
Makes me think....who could be the five people we'll meet in heaven?
Other Favorite Quotes:
"No story sits by itself. Sometimes stories meet at corners and sometimes they cover one another completely, like stones beneath a river."
"But the running boy is inside every man, no matter how old he gets."
"People often belittle the place where they were born. But heaven can be found in the most unlikely corners."
"Each of us was in your life for a reason. You may not have known the reason at that time, and that is what heaven is for. For understanding your life on earth."
"People think of heaven as a paradise garden, a place where they can float in clouds and laze in rivers and mountains. But a scenery without solace is meaningless."
"This is the greatest gift God can give you: to understand what happened in your life. To have it explained. It is the peace you have been searching for."
"Take one story, viewed from two different angles. It is the same day, the same moment, but one angle ends happily, ..., and the other ends badly,..."
"Fairness does not govern life and death. If it did, no good person would ever die young."
"It is because 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."
"It's the thinking that gets you killed."
"War could bond men like a magnet, but like a magnet it could repel them too."
"In the middle of a big war, you go looking for a small idea to believe in. When you find one, you hold it the way a soldier holds his crucifix when he's praying in a foxhole."
"Time is not what you think. Dying? Not the end of everything. We think it is. But what happened on earth is only the beginning."
"But our eyes are different, what you see ain't what I see."
"Things that happen before you are born still affect you.and people who come before your time affect you as well."
"Silence was his escape, but silence is rarely a refuge."
"Which was worse when left unexplained: a life, or a death?"
"People say they "find" love, as if it were an object hidden by a rock. But love takes many forms, and it is never the same for any man and woman. What people find then is a certain love."
"Life has to end, Love doesn't."
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