The meaning of life? I think not.
The meaning of death? Well you never know.
In ‘The Five
People You Meet in
Heaven’ Mitch Albom explores one of many theories regarding Heaven and does an outstanding job. Anyone who has ever lost anyone close to them and never really come to terms with it should read this book. However, by saying that I am not opening Mr Albom up to accusations of being a closet therapist, but this is a feel good book without all the mush and sugar that Hollywood would demand of a blockbusting movie.
Through the story of Eddie, a recently deceased fairground worker, Albom explains the ideas behind his heaven and the things it contains. Other
people, who have had an influence on his life to varying depths, have shaped Eddie. In heaven Eddie once again meets them and they explain to him their effect on his life and his effect on their lives.
Eddies life has not gone to the plans that he envisaged and he finishes his life, as many of us will do, feeling as if he has failed in some way. He has wandered into a
career following in his father’s footsteps, a career which he both loves and hates, purely because it is not of his choosing. The reasons why Eddie’s life drifted in this direction are all explained through the people he meets in heaven.
But Alboms clinching idea is that Eddies unwitting burden and his ultimate redemption centre around the killing and saving of two young girls. Two acts of which he knows very little.
If you get nothing but a good read from this book then Mitch Albom is a success, but if perhaps the book makes you stop and think about how everything in the world is connected then maybe you will see Albom in your heaven.