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In 2003, Mitch Albom brought us another best-selling book called The Five People You Meet in Heaven. He had such immense success from him previous book, Tuesdays With Morrie (1997), this was the answer people were waiting for with bated breath. Like his previous book, The Five People You Meet in Heaven is another excellent weekend book. But you better have some tissues next to you.

The story is about Eddie, who works maintenance at an amusement park called Ruby Pier (similar to Coney Island). He took over from his father, who worked there before him. There is a problem with one of the rides, and he goes up to fix it. He realizes that the cables snapped, and he tries to save a little girl standing in the path of a runaway car, but he ends up dying in the process. After he dies, he gets the chance to meet five people who he had contact with at some point in his life. He may or may not have realized that he had an impact on their life or death at the time, but he is shown now.

The first person is someone called the Blue Man, who died on account of Eddie. When Eddie was little, he was throwing a baseball that accidentally went into the street. As he was running to get the ball, he was almost hit by a car driven by the Blue Man, who swerved and wrecked his car, leading to a fatal heart attack. The second person he meets is his captain from the war, who teaches Eddie about sacrifice. Eddie's captain shoots Eddie in the leg to keep him from walking into a fire. After the captain sees Eddie to the medical unit, he continues on, only to be killed by a landmine. The third person he meets is Ruby, the amusement park owner's wife and the park's namesake. She tells the real story of his father, and urges him to accept the third lesson: forgiveness. The fourth person he meets is his wife Marguerite who is young, like when they were first married. Her lesson for him is unending love. The final person he meets is a young Filipino girl, Tala. When he was fighting in the Philippines, he saw a shadow in a hut he was told to torch. He told himself that it was a soldier. Tala tells him that it was actually her in the hut. Her lesson is that everyone has a purpose on a grand scale, and that everyone's actions affect not only themselves, but the lives of the people around you. She concludes by telling him that he saved the little girl at Ruby Pier.

Wonderfully written, Albom creates a new version of heaven different from the images I've always had. Heaven is not necessarily white clouds and robes, wings and harps. The idea of heaven is specific to each person. Your heaven is wherever you are truly happy. And after you've been there a while, you will be part of someone else's five people. This reinforces the idea that life (and death) is circular. It makes me wonder who the five people I meet would be. I think it's also written to make you think about how your life impacts the people around you, even if you don't realize it does. Although it talks about heaven and death, it's written from a non-religious angle. I believe that you would have to be a pretty hard-hearted person not to choke up at least once while reading this book. This book is meant to make people take a look at ourselves, and think about our own mortality; not in a depressing way, but in a celebratory way: a way that inspires us to be better people.

Learn more about this author, Joyce D. Sinclair.
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