Five People You Meet in Heaven

I am sorry I am having to recycle yet another old blog, this one originally published almost 18 years ago, July 2, 2004 to be exact. Needless to say, the idea of death has been something that has been haunting my mind and I suspect it will continue for a while. I am sending recycled articles so that I don’t lose contact with you.

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If you are in the habit of keeping track of the bestsellers, you would have noticed that in the fiction section, for the past 53 weeks, occupying the number one slot, is a tome called The Da Vinci Code by one Dan Brown.  But also keeping its place in the top ten for the last 25 weeks is The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom.

Albom had been mentioned in one of my columns some two years ago in reference to his very sad, touching book called Tuesdays With Morrie.  Tuesdays is about Maurice Schwartz, Albom’s Brandeis University professor who died of some kind of sclerosis. It remained on the best seller list for four years and went on to sell more than 6 million copies in hard cover alone. In it, the author wonders if “funeral services” as we know it, should not be done when the person is alive so that he can hear the good things that the preacher and eulogists say!  It was made into a movie for TV, in which Jack Lemmon gave one of the most poignant performances of his career.  I believe it was his last performance too.

While ‘Morrie’ was about understanding life, ‘Five Men’ is about accepting the fact that true understanding is not a lot of the living. “Everybody walks around with a bunch of questions that aren’t answered,” Albom says, sounding genuinely upset about it. “And they never get the answers.  They just go right through to the end of their life and never get them.”

Part melodrama and part parable, the book weaves together three stories, all about the same man– 83-year-old Eddie– the head maintenance man at Ruby Point Amusement Park, somewhere on the west coast. As the novel opens, we are told that Eddie, unsuspecting, is only minutes away from death as he goes about his typical business at the park.  Albom then traces Eddie’s world through his final tragic moments, his funeral, and the ensuing days as friends clean up his apartment and adjust to life without him.  In alternating sections, Albom flashes back to Eddie’s birthdays, telling his life story as a kind of progress report over candles and cake each year.  And in the third and last thread of the novel, Albom follows Eddie into heaven where the maintenance man sequentially encounters five pivotal figures from his life.  Each person has been waiting for him in heaven, and as Albom reveals, each life (and death) was woven into Eddie’s own ways he never suspected.  Each soul has a story to tell, a secret to reveal, and a lesson to share. Through them, Eddie understands the meaning of his own life even as his arrival brings closure to theirs.

Eddie finds out how his life affected other lives, even ones he barely even came in contact with.  That is something we all can think about….make a list of people we have helped, people whose life we have destroyed for whatever reason, people who have made a dent in our life, people who have helped shape our lives.

The reviews have been, understandably flattering.

Samples:

1. “This is a fable you will devour when you fall in love. This is the tale you will keep by your side when you are lost.  This is the story you will return to again and again, because it possesses the rare magic to let you see yourself and the world anew.”

2. “Deep, profound, superbly imaginative, written with the quiet eloquence of a story teller who dares to leap into the most magical of places.”

It is a good read.  Regard it, if you want, as what might happen to some of us after we are dead.   This book is a gift to the soul.

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I got the following “Differences Between You and Your Boss” in my email.  The source or the author was not divulged. But I could easily relate it to my own experiences with bosses of all stripes, in four continents!

When you take a long time, you are slow; when your boss takes a long time, they are thorough.

When you don’t do it, you’re lazy; when your boss doesn’t do it, they are too busy.

When you make a mistake, you are an idiot; when your boss makes a mistake, they are only human.

When doing something without being told, you are overstepping your authority; but when your boss does the same, it is initiative.

When you take a stand, you are being bull-headed; but when your boss does it, they are being firm.

When you overlooked a rule of etiquette, you are being rude; when your boss skips a few rules, they are being original.

When you please your boss, you are apple polishing; when your boss pleases their boss, they are being cooperative.

When you are out of office, you are wandering around; when your boss is out of office, they are on business.

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