‘Five People’ begins with the end

By Valerie DePan

Have you ever wondered about your purpose in life? “The Five People You Meet in Heaven” takes place at Ruby Pier Amusement Park where Eddie is fondly known to the children as Eddie Maintenance. Jon Voight plays Eddie, in the motion picture based on the book. What the children don’t know is that Eddie is an embittered war veteran and lost his beloved wife at an early age. Eddie, now 83, wasn’t always old, feels like his whole life has been a waste. After he loses his knee in the war in his prime, he also loses his zest for life and abandons his dreams of becoming an engineer. Instead, he follows the footsteps of his father, and spends the entirety of his life maintaining the rides at the seaside amusement park.

A tragic accident at the pier takes Eddie’s life. Seconds before his death, he is desperately trying to save a woman and her daughter in a cart ride that is about to fall off the cable, Freddy’s Free Fall. The last thing he remembers is a pair of small hands on his. He wonders throughout the book if he saved the little girl. Each chapter is a reflection of Eddie’s birthdays as he relives his life. Then, in a bizarre after life, Eddie individually meets five unexpected who are each waiting for Eddie to teach him a unique lesson that he failed to learn while he was living.

Four of five of the people he meets includes a Blue Man, his Old Captain, Ruby, and his deceased wife Marguerite. He encounters a Blue Man back at Ruby Pier only it’s the pier back when everything was polished and new. Eddie knew a Blue Man, played by Jeff Daniels, from his youth. He was part of the “freak show” at Ruby Pier back in the days when his old man maintained all the rides at the Pier. Their lives are connected in the most superbly imagined way.

The Blue Man teaches Eddie that no life is a waste and that strangers are just family you have yet come to know. I have often wondered the value of always be kind to strangers. It’s compelling to think that the stranger you walk by on the street today one day might become your husband, wife, teacher, boss, next door neighbor or roommate.

The Blue Man’s parting words to Eddie are that there are others for him to meet. Eddie encounters his old Captain played by Michael Imperioli who brings back long but not forgotten memories that haunted him his entire life. Eddie purposely lost touch and never knew or cared what become his old war buddies. All he knew was that one-day he woke up and his life was never the same. There was no more dancing or running and he didn’t feel the same about anything anymore. Lessons of sacrifice are often riveting and here Albom succeeds brilliantly.

He unexpectedly encounters his old man who is oblivious to Eddie. Eddie recalls the silent relationship he maintained with his dad until his death. Albom writes, “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.”

All parents damage their children be it neglect, violence, or silence. Yet most boys covet their fathers. Emotional and stirring, I think that most people of all ages can relate to how we become damaged goods. Ruby, played by Ellen Burstyn, shows Eddie things that happened in his old man’s life that both his parents took to the grave. The things we all never speak of but knowing would make all the difference in the world.

The last of two people Eddie meets in Heaven includes his deceased wife Marguerite played by Dagmara Dominczyk. She takes him on a tour of weddings throughout the world from Germany, China, Lebanon, to his own wedding where Marguerite chooses to greet Eddie in the form that they met. Albom writes, “Love, like rain, can nourish from above, drenching couples with soaking joy. But sometimes, under the angry heat of life, love dries on the surface and must nourish from below, tending to its root, keeping itself alive.”

Eddie loved his wife Marguerite with every breath of his life. Eddie was angry that she was taken away from him by a sudden unexpected illness in her forties. He’s guilt ridden that he wasn’t a better husband. Marguerite teaches Eddie love never ends and even though she wasn’t there by Eddie’s side, that love has a life of its own.

You must read the book to discover the fifth person that Eddie meets in heaven. It’s riveting. It’s a quick and easy read and well worth the tears. This book magically teaches that we all have a connection and purpose—though it may not be known until we meet our teachers in an afterlife we call heaven or another’s hell.

Mitch Albom is the author of “Tuesdays with Morrie.” He is a newspaper columnist and broadcaster and lives with his wife, Janine, in Michigan.