The Five People You Meet in Heaven
By Mitch Albom (2003)
“There are no random acts...We are all connected...You can no more separate one life from another than you can separate a breeze from the wind...”
I picked up this book because, in short, the premise intrigued me. The idea is that when we go to heaven, we meet five people who affected our lives. I have always been interested in the ‘butterfly effect’ - the idea that every action has a consequence, and each consequence has a consequence. Everything in the past had to happen at exactly the time and place that it did for us to even be here. Therefore, each person has a distinct purpose in our lives, whether we know it or not.
“Each affects the other, and the other affects the next, and the world is full of stories, but the stories are all one.”
The book begins at the end. It centres around Eddie, and 83-year-old man who has lived a rather disappointing life. Within the first few pages, Eddie dies trying to save a little girl. The question of whether he succeeded in saving her or not lingers throughout the book, and is, of course, answered by the end. Once he has entered the pearly gates, he is met, one by one, with people whose lives he has touched - and vice versa. He learns lessons about himself and the nature of life from each of them. Though Eddie is not overwhelmingly likeable (though I believe that that is the point), he will make his way into your heart by the end.
Totalling just 240 pages, Albom keeps the book short and sweet. The book counts down to Eddie’s death, making the unstoppable nature of time an inescapable theme. The plot is structured around the five people Eddie meets, and is interrupted by flashbacks to Eddie’s childhood. It is within these flashbacks that we, as readers, can begin to understand Eddie. I think it touches upon the idea that we all know people whom we think we could understand better if we could watch their childhoods play out.
I did, in fact, shed a tear as I turned the final page of this book. Maybe because Eddie reminds me an awful lot of my 92-year-old grandad…who is also called Eddie. Maybe because the premise of this book made me think about who my five people would be. Maybe because it promises some answers and closure in life after death. I can understand why this book has been criticised for being too casual, not deep enough, and slightly predictable. but I would argue that those things allow us room to think within ourselves as we read.
Notable quotes:
“It might seem strange to start a story with an ending. But all endings are also beginnings. We just don’t know it at the time.”
“All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair.”
“Holding anger is a poison...It eats you from inside...We think that by hating someone we hurt them...But hatred is a curved blade...and the harm we do to others...we also do to ourselves.”
“The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone.”
“You have peace," the old woman said, "when you make it with yourself.”