The
Five People You Meet in Heaven
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The
most successful US hardcover first adult novel ever
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Published
in September 2003
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Sold
over ten million copies in 38 territories and 35 languages
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Turned
into a television movie for ABC starring: Jon Voight, Ellen Burstyn, Michael
Imperioli and Jeff Daniels; Directed by: Lloyd Kramer
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Critically
acclaimed and the most watched TV movie of the year with 18.7 million viewers
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Inspired
by Albom’s real life uncle: Eddie Beitchman, who, like the character served
during the World War II in the Philippines and died when he was 83
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Eddie
told Albom (as a child) about a time he was rushed to surgery and had a
near-death experience – his soul floating above the bed. There Eddie said, he
saw all his dead relatives waiting for him at the edge of the bed. Albom said
that image of people waiting when you die inspire his concept of The Five
People You Meet in Heaven
Introduction:
The book is a mixture of the
protagonist’s journey of the past (through flashbacks) and the present (in
heaven). In every chapter are mini chapter-like segments and Eddie’s birthdays.
Chapter 1: The End
The book started with introducing
Eddie (the protagonist) and explained how it started. The author added: “But
all endings are also beginnings. We just don’t know it at the time. The story started with Eddie’s last
hour in an amusement park by a great gray ocean – Ruby Pier. Eddie, an old
working man as what he is described to be in the time of his death; works as
maintenance man – keeping the rides safe. Regular costumers knew Eddie seeing
him every summer. In his last 50 minutes, Eddie took his last walk along Ruby
Pier. It was his 83rd birthday.
After 10 minutes, Eddie rode the “Ghost
Coaster” – as what they call this one, as part of his routine in checking the
safety of the rides.
Flashback:
Eddie grew up in the same pier, he was
the tough one – protected his older brother Joe from his enemies sending them
to the hospital.
After riding with the children, Eddie
went to the maintenance shop where his young co-worker Dominguez was. Eddie, at
some point of his life wanted to leave and venture another life away from the
pier but still ended up there as the maintenance man or “the ride man at Ruby
Pier” as the kids sometimes call him.
26 minutes to live, he saw a bunch
of teenagers leaning over the railing of the bumper cars and sent them away
whacking the railing so hard with his cane almost snapping it into two. Eddie
was a brave soldier and he even won a medal (in a flashback).
Eddie in his 19 minutes left on
earth, sat on an aluminum bench on his regular spot in the pier where he first
met Marguerite on a warm September night after a thunderstorm (one true-love
snapshot).
A short story was inserted about a
young man named Nicky who went to the Ruby Pier with three of his friends. He
had just started driving and still not comfortable with carrying the key chain
so he removed it and put the key in his jacket pocket and tied the jacket in
his waist. They rode the fastest rides in the pier and didn’t notice the key
was gone until they were in the car lot.
14 minutes until his death was spent
reminiscing his past with Marguerite. Two minutes after, a young girl
interrupted him and asked him a favor. Then he got back to reminiscing then
suddenly a fat woman was screaming because something went wrong with one of the
carts of the free fall. Only Eddie knows how the thing works and with
expertise, found out that the pulley was wedged by a small object have fallen
through the opening – a car key. In an attempt to rescue the passengers of the
ride, a mistake ended his life trying to save a little girl.
Today
Is Eddie’s Birthday:
In this segment, Eddie was born. It
was in year 1920’s. This part was focused on the first view of Eddie’s father
to his son.
Chapter 2: The Journey
The chapter started with stories about
afterlife and having second chances but in Eddie’s case, he won’t have
one. He was floating and can barely feel
the pain he felt when he died. Strange things happened and the only thing that
is in his mind is the wonder of how the worry and the pain vanished.
Today
is Eddie’s birthday:
It was Eddie’s fifth birthday in a
Sunday afternoon at Ruby Pier. His father is in the card game as usual. In this
segment Eddie met Mickey Shea, an Irish and one of Eddie’s father’s co-workers.
Eddie’s mother was also there.
Chapter 3: The Arrival
Eddie woke up in a teacup and in his
great disbelief saw Ruby Pier in his childhood, 75 years ago. Eddie’s strength
also came back and was able to run again after 60 years. He ran and jumped like
a child. The author added: “But the running boy is inside every man, no matter
how old he gets.
Suddenly he heard a tiny voice, as if
coming through a megaphone. He was standing in an empty ticket house and
recalled the freak house that was shut down 50 years when television became
popular. He heard voices from the freak house where he had encountered some odd
people. Eddie, as a child, felt sorry for them. Eddie entered the darkened hall
and as the barker’s voice vanished, there he stepped back in disbelief of what
he saw sitting in a chair, alone on the stage whom he would have forgotten if
not for his blue skin. The blue man greeted Eddie and told him that he had been
waiting for him.
Chapter 4: The First
Person Eddie Meets in Heaven
The blue man rose from his chair
telling him not to be afraid. The blue man explained to him the things he had
experienced and reason why he is there in the first place. Ruby Pier is Eddie’s
heaven. He explained that there are five people he will meet in heaven. He
added that there are people he meets in his life for a reason and heaven is
there for understanding his life on earth. He told Eddie that this was the
greatest gift God can give him – to understand what happened in his life – to
have it explained – the peace he had been searching for.
The blue man is Eddie’s first person and he is
there to tell him his story which will become part of his. Eddie pushed himself
to speak and was able to ask who killed him and the blue man answered – “you
did”.
Today
is Eddie’s Birthday:
It was Eddie’s 7th
birthday and his gift is a new baseball. It was the time when Eddie encountered
the freaks from the freak show.
Eddie denied that he killed him. The
blue man tried to put him at ease and started introducing himself. The blue
man's name is Joseph Corvelzchik, a son of a tailor in a small Polish village.
The blue man continued by talking about his life, how hard it was and how did
his skin turned into blue.
A story was viewed into two different angles:
It was Sunday morning of July in the
late 1920's. Eddie, with his friends were playing with his baseball he got
almost a year ago. Upon chasing the ball, he runs in front of an automobile, a
Ford Model A. The car was able to miss him and he ran back to his friends.
In another angle, Joseph explained
how Eddie became responsible (or one of the) of his death.
Today
is Eddie's birthday:
It
was Eddie's 8th birthday. In his birthday is a funeral of one of the workers in
the pier. It may be Joseph's.
Chapter 5: The First
Lesson
Joseph explained that lives are
connected. All lives intersect. There are no random things that just happened
that there is balance to it. Eddie still reluctant to what he had discovered
asked him what good Joseph's death gave and he answered that Eddie's life was
spared. He added that "Strangers are just family you have yet to come to
know".
Joseph pulled Eddie close then suddenly
he felt all the feelings that the blue man felt in his life.
Eddie asked him if he was able to
save the girl's life and the blue man did not answer. Then Eddie hastily
concluded that his life was a waste but Joseph told him that no life is a waste
and the only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone. Then the
blue man's skin turned into the loveliest shade of caramel - smooth and unblemished
then he slowly disappeared.
Sunday, 3pm: Eddie’s dead and the
news spread across the beach.
Today
is Eddie’s Birthday
It is Eddie’s 17th
birthday. His cousins from Romania came over and it was also the time when Joe
spilled out the news of Eddie admiring a girl.
Chapter 6: The Second
Person Eddie Meets in Heaven
Eddie arrived into a place surrounded
by fallen trees. He experienced some changes in his body. It is different from
how it was earlier. Suddenly there were bomb blasts and explosions that he
heard so he instinctively fell to the ground and crawled along in the mud until
he felt something brushed against something solid – a rifle dug into the ground
with a helmet sitting atop to it and a set of dog tags hanging from the grip.
One of the dog tag’s names was his.
Flashback:
Like any other young man, Eddie also
enlisted to participate in the war but before enlisting, Eddie wanted to be an
engineer. War was Eddie’s call to manhood.
In Eddie’s final nights, he was
practicing his aim with a small arcade riffle. While he was practicing, Mickey
Shea came and gave an advice about fighting in war. A few days later Eddie left
for the war.
The second person was revealed in the story;
it was the Captain, Eddie’s commanding officer whom he fought in the
Philippines with.
Today
is Eddie’s Birthday:
This is the birthday before Eddie goes
to war. In here Marguerite came and was worried about his journey to the war.
In their conversation he revealed that he was the one who shot his leg to save
his life. Eddie was so angry and cannot believe that it was the captain of all
people who shot him led him to lose his “life”. In almost the end of their
journey, a small click sounded beneath his right foot and the land mine
exploded and split him into pieces.
Chapter 7: The Second
Lesson
The captain told him of what is heaven
all about. It is about making sense of your yesterdays. The captain’s message
was all about sacrifice.
Chapter 8: The Third
Person Eddie Meets in Heaven
Eddie was in a place that is snowing
near a boxcar-shaped building with a stainless exterior and a red barrel roof.
Inside it was his father.
Today
is Eddie’s Birthday:
It was the birthday spent by Eddie
after the war. He was in the hospital where his family and Mickey Shea and
Marguerite surprised him.
In continuation, Eddie’s anger to his
father came flowing back again. The third person he met in heaven was a
waitress in the Seahorse Grille – the place where he used to have breakfast.
She got married and his husband set up a business using her name as the name of
the pier business. The third person was Ruby.
Today
is Eddie’s Birthday:
It is Eddie’s 33rd
birthday. In his birthday he woke up very early in the morning brought by
nightmares that he had about the war. By the end of this segment, he received a
phone call. Something happened to his father.
Ruby was there to tell him how his
father died. But before that, the story flashed back into the time his father
died.
Today
is Eddie’s Birthday
It was his 37th birthday.
It was spend on a busy summer with his friend Noel where they have made mention
of an incident in a Gandola ride.
Chapter 9: The Third
Lesson
The third lesson was about loyalty – a
lesson he got from his father knowing the truth. His father takes friendships
seriously. Eddie expressed how he hated his father, that he was hell to him and
a lot worse when he was older. Ruby
added that anger is a poison – it eats you inside; it is a curved blade. Ruby
also encouraged Eddie to forgive – forgive his father and he was able to.
Chapter 10: The Fourth
Person Eddie Meets in Heaven
Eddie is in a small room. He goes out
of a door and experiences many wedding celebrations from around the world. At
the last one, he sees a beautiful young woman. It’s Marguerite. She is his
fourth person. Eddie cries and tells her how much he has missed her.
Today
is Eddie’s Birthday:
It was Eddie’s 38th
birthday. Joe became successful later on with life and earns 3 times Eddie’s
salary. He congratulated Eddie’s promotion – head of maintenance – their
father’s old position but he was not grateful. Marguerite offered a surprise to
Eddie with some children – because she likes children although, unfortunately
cannot have one.
Eddie and Marguerite’s wedding took
place Christmas Eve on the second floor of a dimly lit Chinese restaurant
called Sammy Hong’s. Eddie asked
Marguerite questions about what she experienced in heaven. He is wondering if
it was all the same for the both of them. Eddie can’t still believe that he is
now talking to his wife and was reluctant to accept it. Eddie cries and tells
her how much he has missed her. Time goes back to Eddie’s thirty-ninth
birthday. He was gambling at the races with a friend. Marguerite was driving
there to persuade him to go home but she had an accident and ended up in
hospital. They had been trying to adopt a child but now that Marguerite was so
ill it was impossible. Eddie felt guilty and their relationship wasn’t good for
a while, but eventually their love returned. Sadly, Marguerite got a brain
tumor when she was forty-seven and died, and Eddie was heartbroken. Eddie and
Marguerite spend time together in heaven and she teaches him his fourth lesson.
She explains that when she died she continued to love him as he did her. She
explains that lost love is still love. Life has to end but love doesn’t. They
dance and Marguerite disappears.
Chapter 11: The Fourth
Lesson
The fourth lesson was about love which
Eddie felt for Marguerite. But this is love in general. Love, even if life may
end but love doesn’t.
Chapter 12: The Fifth
Person Eddie Meets in Heaven and
Chapter 13: The Last
Lesson
Eddie can only see white and he misses
his wife. Then he hears a screaming noise and sees a river full of children
playing. One small beautiful girl calls to him and a wind pushes him to her.
Her name is Tala and she is his last person. She tells him that he had burnt
her when she was hiding from the soldiers and Eddie realizes that she is the
figure he saw in the burning building during the war. He cries and asks for her
forgiveness. She gives him a stone and asks him to wash her with it. Eddie now
sees how her skin and body are completely burnt and he follows her to the
river. As he rubs the stone over her body, the burnt skin drops off and she is
beautiful again. She now asks him why he had been sad when he was on Earth and
he explains that he had felt his life was a waste. She explains that in fact
his life had a clear purpose. He was meant to be at Ruby Park to look after the
small children. This is his final lesson. Tala also explains that he had pushed
the young girl out of the way of the falling car before he died and saved her
life. Tala had then led him safely into heaven. The hands that Eddie had felt
in his at the moment of his death had been hers. Eddie now passes through the
many colors of heaven which are the emotions of his life and ends up in his own
heaven with his wife Marguerite. He will be one of the people there waiting in
heaven for the little girl whose life he saved after she has grown up and died
and needs to learn five lessons that explain her life on Earth.
The book is really good. The experience would still be better if you will be able to read the book. I salute to the one and only Mitch Albom! He brings you into another perspective of life.
