Mitch Albom's The Five People You Meet In Heaven

The Five People You Meet in Heaven, is a novel by Mitch Albom. This novel follows the journey of Eddie through heaven. Eddie is an 83year old maintenance man, who has dedicated his life to working at Ruby Pier. Eddie is killed trying to save a little girl from being killed by an amusement park ride that is ready to collapse. Eddie’s life ambition was to go to school and become an engineer; instead he ended up working at Ruby Pier holding down the same job as his father. Eddie and his father relationship was very different than most father-son’s relationships. Eddie felt his father was a drunk, belligerent, abusive, and most of all unloving. Eddie felt that his father never loved him even when he was a small boy. This is one trait that all children strive for; the love of their parents. All Eddie wanted in his life was his father’s approval and acceptance. Eddie felt that the only time his father was proud of him was when he was physically able to fix a maintenance problem at the pier. Eddie felt that his career at Ruby Pier was a punishment for his feelings for his father.”He cursed his father for dying and trapping him in the life he’d been trying to escape, a life that, as he heard the old man laughing from his grave, apparently now was good enough for him”(128). Finally, Eddie realized just how much his work on the pier

Eddie may have lost his American Dream but, he had saved numerous amounts of people over the years by his maintenance work. Eddie can now replace regret with honor for all he has accomplished on earth. Eddie from the treatment of his father saw it was far easier to never express love to others. Eddie’s journey taught him that everyone is connected to each other so that one’s actions will influence someone else. Every life touches another and everything is connected it is all one big life. Eddie loved, hated, resented, appreciated, laughed, cried, cared, neglected, but life was truly a memorable