Five People you Meet in Heaven

Well yesterday I made it to church. It was a great service, and afterwards I even had an opportunity to sit around and talk to a few of the folk. I found out that Stans mother-in-law is from Lethbridge and living in a retirment community close to the church. I also learned that Leanne has a new boyfriend, and that one of her daughters is moving out and the other is getting ready to head off to University next year. I also managed to get Dyron to sign my passport papers so I one step closer to a great vacation.

Now after church I was helping Dyron carry a few things out, and we were talking about being good at "receiving". I told him that I have never been a good "receiver". I dont mind giving when i can, and I dont mind having people give me something when I need it, but only when i ask for it. I really dont deal well with gifts, or charity in general, from the other side. I dont know how that conversation got onto Mitch Albom but it did. Dyron asked if I had ever read Tuesday's with maurie, and I had to confess that I had not. He made me put down the things I was carrying and he reached into one of the bags, and pulled out a book called "Five People You Meet In Heaven." It wasnt the first time this book title has come up in conversation, but it was the first time it had been put into my hands.

Everyone who knows me, knows that books are special to me. I think, books, like people come across when we need them most. Sometimes, we pass them, and their lessons by, but other times they are thrust into our faces and our lives, in a not so subtle gesture. I liked the cover of the book, I liked its size. It was small, and small books have a way of being simple, like quantum physics or DNA.

After a trip to the gym, and a quick feed of the fish, I put some pasta on the stove and jumped onto the sofa, tucked my pillow in behind my head and started to read. And I read, and I read. With Eddie I met five people you meet in heaven. I learned five lessons you learn in heaven. And then it was over. There are few books that get read in one sitting. But the ones that do, you know as soon as you put it down, that your life has been changed. You have escaped into someone elses narrative. You have felt someone elses experiences, you have shared their pain, and you have shared their frustration, but in this case you have shared their confusion and their attempt to make sense out of life. I have always said that life is chaos. And the only order you find in life, is in the past. So this books was about re-evaluating a chaotic experience, and making some sense or order of it.

This book was confusing and compelling to me, because in my narrative, my own personal narrative that I live each day, I am already in Heaven, and so with each person that I met in the book and in Eddies world, I tried to relate. I tried to ask myself, "Have I met that person yet?". And although my mind bounced around from images and memories in my life, it never came to rest on any one character. So the book left me at a loss. It was a good loss, the kind of loss that says "maybe you are not in heaven yet", "maybe it does get better than this". "Maybe there is still room for another couple beginnings."

It was definately a book about endings turning into beginnings. I will probably do some more thinking about it in the coming weeks. And if anyone has read it, and has some opinions about it, i would love to hear them.

NMZ out