Mitch Albom's THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN

A crippled old man was sitting on a bench of an amusement park by the sea. It was his 83^rd birthday. There he sat, watching the waves rolled and splashed on the beach, wondering why all the people he ever loved – his mother, his brother, his friends, his most-cherished wife – had all left him to live this wretched life in this wretched place, doing the same, wretched job decades after decades.

He was lonely. Very lonely.

Sitting all by himself on that bench by the seashore, he thought of when his time to die would come. He desired to go to heaven and be reunited with his family. And that wish was granted almost in an instant!

A few minutes afterward, an accident took place. The old man tried to save a little girl’s life and lost his in the attempt. As his birthday wish was fulfilled, he was taken into heaven. But the heaven he discovered was not the kind of place with the sort of people he had ever imagined!

Who was it he met in heaven?

To answer that question, I suggest you read The Five People You Meet in Heaven, a book by Mitch Albom. It’s a thought-provoking one, I’d say – a book that really makes you sit down to rethink of your life.

We, human, can never get the whole picture. We think of life as a series of jumbled, irregular pieces of a big, jigsaw puzzle – most of the time. But when life comes to an end (or halt, for us, readers), the time comes for us to comprehend its meaning in full. As our perspective in viewing life changes, we shall be able to understand that even the tiniest coincidence happens for a reason, and a total stranger we bumped into by the road may alter our entire course of life. Viewed from that angle, we may suggest that basically there is no such thing as coincidences or accidents, aliens or strangers.

Everything that happens, happens with a purpose. Every life we touch will – to some extent – be influenced by what we do. We are all linked in a loop that never ends. It is quite true.

This is the kind of book that makes its readers wiser, the kind that opens a window in the air and shows us a new (but familiar) kind of beauty without needing to add a single word.

Thanks, Mitch, for sharing it with us.