I got the chance to read this great book of Mitch Albom..my office mate, Mau Gamboa let me borrow his book..good thing he gave me the opportunity to borrow the book which happens to be a gift for him by his friend..anyways, this book has five lessons in every person that was met by Eddie (the one who died and was able to meet the five persons whom had a connection to him while he is still living on earth).
First Lesson from the First Person:
Eddie first met the blue man who told his story on how he became a member of the freak show. He told Eddie how he died: It was when the blue man borrowed his friend's car to practice driving when A kid's baseball bounced at the street and run after it. The blue man tried to slam his break and to control the car but he bumped into a truck when he tried to stop the car from bumping to the kid.
On the first chapter of the book, Eddie is attending a funeral in which he doesn't even know whom they're attending to and felt that it was unfair to attend a funeral instead of celebrating his birthday. After hearing the blue man's story, he then realized that he was the one who killed the blue man. He was the kid that the blue man avoided to get hit
"Fairness does not govern life and death. If it did, no good person would ever die young."
"Strangers, are just family you have yet to know."
"No life is a waste. the only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone."
"There are no random acts. We are all connected, that you can no more separate a breeze from the wind."
Second Lesson from the Second Person:
The second person that Eddie met was their Captain during the World War II. Eddie joined the military during his younger days. When they were deployed in the Philippines, something happened which changed his life. Eddie, together with their Captain and four other soldiers, were taken as prisoners. They were kept in bamboo barracks and barely fed.
One morning their captors lead them into a coal mine. They were forced to strip coal to help the enemy's war effort. A few months later one of the prisoners, Rabozzo, developed a severe sickness and was unable to work. One of the captures shot him in the head, in front of Eddie and the rest of the prisoners. Three weeks later Eddie found one of the captors, Crazy Three, trying to juggle rocks. Since Eddie knew how to juggle, he decided to create a diversion for the prisoners to escape. He juggled for Crazy Three who then called in the other captors to watch. Eddie captured their attention with his juggling and then began to throw the rocks into the faces of the captors. Eddie and the other prisoners were successful at killing the four guards, enabling them to escape. Right after Eddie and the remaining prisoners escape, they steal the enemies’ weapons and decide to destroy the prison they had lived in for almost half a year. As the hut went up in flames Eddie thought he saw an innocent child crawl into the hut. He ran in after it, caught on fire and was shot in the leg. His buddies rolled him around in the dirt until he was no longer on fire. He then remembers being carted away in a transport vehicle.
The Captain tells Eddie that it was he who shot him. He did not want Eddie to burn to death and he knew Eddie would hurt him if he tried to get him out of the hut. Eddie is furious at the Captain for ruining the rest of his life; he beats him furiously, not harming him. Eddie then learns that the Captain died later that night trying to secure a path for the vehicle containing Eddie and the two other soldiers.
Eddie then learns that the Captain had died that evening trying to help with their escape. He got out of the vehicle to make sure the path was clear and safe; however, he stepped on a land mine, which exploded right under him.
Eddie begun to understand the Captain's meaning of "sacrifice" and forgives the Captain for shooting him.
"Time is not what you think. Dying? Not the end of everything. We think it is. But what happens on earth is only the beginning."
"Sometimes, when you sacrifice something precious, you're not really losing it. You're just passing it on to someone else."
Third Lesson from the Third Person:
The third person that Eddie met was Ruby. When Eddie saw Ruby, he has no idea who she was and what is her connection to Eddie's life on earth. For such reason, the woman leads him away and tells her story of how she met her husband, their courtship and how he built an amusement park for her. The old woman is named Ruby, “Ruby Pier’s” namesake.
Ruby tells Eddie of a terrible fire that broke out on the pier one evening. Her husband, Emile, heard of the fire and ran down to the pier; he tried to put out some of the fire and a column collapsed on him, which changed their lives forever. They lost the pier, his fortune and his health. They ended up moving away from the pier so Ruby could tend to her wounded husband. Ruby tells Eddie that she had one wish and it was that Emile had never built the pier. Eddie now sees that he is not the only one who regretted the pier ever being built.
After the death of Eddie's father, he secretly cursed him, for how he had treated Eddie and how Eddie was forced to take over his job at the pier. After Eddie had taken over his father's job, he and Marguerite moved back into his mother's apartment building to take care of her; for after his father's death, his mother was mentally unstable. Eddie hated his father because he was the reason Eddie never escaped Ruby Pier, which he had been trying to do his entire life.
Ruby shows Eddie a horrifying scene involving Mickey Shea, his father, and mother. Eddie learns that his father died because of loyalty. Mickey Shea was drunk and hurting Eddie's mother. His father's initial reaction was to kill Mickey; however, when Mickey fell into the ocean Eddie's father jumped in after him and saved his life. It was because of this night that Eddie's father caught the pneumonia that later killed him.
Eddie then realized that he got no right to hate his father and curse his death. His father tried to save his mother, for this reason he got ill which lead to his death.
"Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from inside. We think that hating is a weapon that attack the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harm we do, we do to ourselves."
Fourth Lesson from the Fourth Person:
The person that he met was Marguerite, his wife. When Ruby vanished, he was able to enter different rooms. Each room he enter has a wedding celebration, and different reception depending on the culture. Then he met a teenage girl, whom he knew was Marguerite. He right then that it was his wife during her younger years.
When his wife died, he hated her for leaving him alone, since they weren't able have to have a child. When they started to talk, Eddie told Marguerite how unfair she is for leaving him. But she explains to Eddie and let him realize the importance of their love for each other, and that the love they have is unconditional and will never end.
"People say that they 'find' love, as if it were an object hidden by rock. But love takes many forms, and it is never the same for any for any man and woman. what people find then is a certain love. A grateful love, a deep but quiet love, above all else, was irreplaceable."
"Lost love is still love. It takes a different, that's all.You can't see their smile or bring them food or tousle their hair or move them around a dance floor. But when those senses weaken, another heightens. Memory. Memory becomes your partner. You nurture it. You hold it. You dance with it. Life has to end, but love doesn't"
The Fifth Lesson from the Last Person:
Eddie wonders who could be the last person that he will meet. He thought that it will be God. But he thought it wrong. He met a kid instead.
After the war and being a prisoner, Eddie is having a frequent nightmare of what had happened during that night, and swore he saw a kid crawling in the fire from the burning camp. But since he was shot that brought him down to his knees, he wasn't able to save the kid from the camp.
Eddie finds himself in a purely white and silent setting. He hears a horrifying noise and notices that he is clenching his cane; his body is old and in pain just as it was before he died. The white setting disappears and turns into a river where children are happily playing. Eddie sees a young girl motioning for him to come to her. As he got to the girl's place, the little girl told him that her name is 'Tala'. She is an Asian girl, a kid from the Philippines. Eddie wonders deeply what then is the kid's connection to his life. The kid started to a story, the story of how she died.
Tala, is the kid that Eddie saw from the burning camp. He couldn't gather all the strength of how he he will say all the words that he wanted to say. He felt like he is the one who killed the poor kid. He took her right to live. But the little kid let him realized that what happened that night is connected to what will happen in the future. Tala made him realized that the reason for him o live in Ruby Pier is to give happiness to all the children by securing their safety in all the rides in the amusement park. And that the time he spend in Ruby Pier, which he hated for all his life, is not being wasted for he secured the safety of the kids that are almost at Tala's same age. It was the reason of his living, the reason that he has been waiting to be answered when he is still living spending time at the amusement park.
"Each affects the other and the other affects the next, and the world is full of stories, but the stories are all one."
This book has an extraordinary story which gave me goosebumps specially with the last person that Eddie met in heaven. The story in this book will let its reader realize the importance of each situations that we encounter in our life. That life has its different stories, but each story connects to the other, and has something to do to the next.
