The Five People You Meet in Heaven

The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom is an allegorical story of a man named Eddie who dies, goes to Heaven, and meets five people who, in some way or another, were impacted or had an impact on his life. Whether or not Eddie knew it, God had put these people in Eddie's life for a reason, and he goes to Heaven and finds out answers about his life and the people he is meeting.

The story starts with Eddie, an old man (Eighty years old to be exact) who works at Ruby Pier, a carnival-like amusement park. Eddie has worked there for most all of his life (except when he served in the war), and, even though today is his birthday, he still does everything the same way he would do things any other day. Today would be different though. A thrill ride called Freddy's Free Fall had been stuck with all its passengers at the top of the ride, and it was rather tilted towards the ground. Eddie raced over to tell the man running the ride to get the passengers off and then press the release button. The man did and when he pressed the release button, the cart where the passengers had been fell to the ground. In the midst of all this, Eddie saw a little girl right under the spot where the cart would fall, and, despite his bad leg, he ran over to save the little girl as the cart was falling. All he felt was her little hands and then, pain followed by the feeling of floating.

Eddie, not knowing whether he had saved the little girl, had died and now he was in heaven. He felt no pain or sadness. He was just floating over fields of unimaginable colors. When he finally landed, he was at Ruby Pier, but it was the Ruby Pier from his childhood. He then heard a voice over the loudspeaker saying there was a freak show at a certain tent and Eddie went to that tent. There was a blue-skinned man sitting in a chair that Eddie tried to speak to, but he could not get the words out. At this point, Eddie was very confused, and then, almost as if the blue man could hear Eddie's thoughts, began to tell Eddie all about why he was here and about himself. Eddie is told that the blue man was one of five people he would meet on his journey, and this journey was to find out answers about his life that he would not have ever know. These five people were in some way, a big part of Eddie's life whether Eddie knew it or not.

The blue man, whose real name is Joseph Corvelzchik, proceeds to tell Eddie all about his past and the reason his skin turned blue. This is because he had taken nitroglycerin for a nerve condition that he had, and it turned his skin blue and caused all his hair to fall out. Eddie (who is now barely able to speak) vaguely remembers this man from his childhood but does not realize what important part this man had in his life. Joseph then tells Eddie how he killed him. Eddie does not believe it until Joseph shows him a time where Eddie and his friends were playing stickball in his yard when the ball rolled into the street. Eddie went to go get it just as Joseph was driving by. Joseph swerved out of the way, crashed into the rear of a parked car and rolls into an alley. He gets out unscathed, but his heart was racing from that almost accident and then, sadly, he had a heart attack and died. He had been waiting there in that tent in heaven for Eddie all those years. Eddie cannot believe it. Just as Eddie is about to ask Joseph a question, his skin turns normal and he has hair on his face and head. Joseph then tips his hat and walks away. Eddie is then whisked away to meet his second person.

He arrives at a war-torn battlefield. Eddie feels stronger now and starts running. He hears a bomb blast and falls to the ground crawling through mud. His head brushes up against a gun stuck in the ground with a helmet and dog tags. To his surprise and fear, the dog tags were his. Eddie remembers when he went to war, and then he hears a voice from the tree above. He goes up to investigate, and he finds out that it is his captain from the war. The captain (smoking a cigarette at this point) and Eddie remember when they were in the war in the Philippines and how they and four others were captured and put in a type of Philippine labor camp. One of the total six died there (they were the only prisoners in the entire camp), and the others were thinking of a way to escape. Eddie came up with a plan to escape and it worked. The Philippine guards were killed, and the five left started burning all the houses and buildings of and around the camp. After Eddie had lit a fire on one house, he thought he saw something that resembled a little girl inside. He went to the door and was about to go in when a bullet hit his leg, and, because his arm was already on fire, lost consciousness.

The captain explains that it was he who shot Eddie in the leg. Eddie jumps after the captain and they both fall out of the tree onto the ground. Eddie's leg starts to hurt again, and the captain explains that he had to shoot him or he would have died in that fire. The captain then tells him what happened after Eddie blacked out. He tells Eddie that they all piled into a vehicle and stopped at a gate to a path. The captain went to open the gate and stepped on a land mine. Eddie

...