THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN: a book

The Five People You meet in Heaven is another soul quenching book by the author of Tuesdays with Morrie, Mitch Albom. This book is almost fable like, telling a story about a man named Eddie, who dies at the age of 83 at his workplace. Eddie is born and raised near a seaside amusement park, Ruby piers and interestingly he spends his adulthood also in this same place working as a maintenance guy till he breaths his last.
The book begins its chapter with The End. Paradoxical. But the whole length of the book begins with the end of Eddie’s life. Eddie, the maintenance guy dies while trying to save a little girl from a mishap at the park. After his death, Eddie walks the unknown path into what the writer calls heaven. Heaven is not the grassy hillock abundant in peace and respite. It’s the same world we live in yet seen in a different context for we look at it with different set of eyes and a different set of consciousness.
One by one, Eddie meets five people who demystify his life before death. The first person Eddie meets is a stranger, whose stark grossness of physical look perturbs Eddie in the beginning but with the meeting the first person Eddie learns that the people he is supposed to meet in the afterlife need not necessarily be his family or friends. From each of the five people Eddie meets, he learns a section of his own life he had lived yet wasn’t aware of.
This book makes you accept death in a new fashion. We think of death as an ultimate phase out thing but after reading this we see death as a door to self- discovery and self- redemption. May be I could connect to this book at this hour when I am trying to combat death sitting in a place where all I see is illnesses and death.
But today, I look at death, not as a foe but an accomplice to that new unseen world of afterlife. Death can be the time machine that reveals our past, unlocking its mystery and giving a new path leading to a known future. This book breaks the cliché- a known past and the unknown future. Ironically, this book shows past is unknown and future can be known.
While I’ve been scared of life after death, this book has opened my mind to a new realization and like Eddie I took a mental journey of afterlife, trying to figure out who I might meet. While I could not give shape to the strangers I might meet, I am pretty much sure of the family and friends I might want to meet and settle the scores for once and for all.
A soul fulfilling tale which makes one ponder on death yet make you accept death in a new limelight. A must read for people who fear to tread the path we all must walk on one day when our business on Earth is done.