the five people you meet in heaven by Mitch Albom is a story about the life of Eddie the Maintenance Man, or to be more precise it is about the death of Eddie with references to the life that he led up to that death. It is also one of those books that you almost don't pick up because you know it will be just so sickly sweet that you can't stand it like that email that Aunt Myrtle just sent you last week with the wavy flags and the drooly dogs. You know the one. But after you pick it up and start reading you find that it isn't easy to set back down. And you find that there aren't any wavy flags or drooly dogs after all.
The heavenly events described don't fit the religion I'm most familiar with. In fact they don't fit any religion I'm familiar with including the "walk towards the light" sort of religion that some people like to think is universal. Perhaps it would be better to call it a fable or a myth because it is a story the way that we could HOPE it would be when we die.
Eddie does meet five people, not all of whom he crossed paths with on earth but all of whom had something to teach him about his life. If I had to argue with anything about the book, it would be the arbitrariness of five. I could picture some of us having 1 or 2 while others might need a couple dozen to get the messages that would make any sense of our lives. It also supposes that each of us is of sound mind either at death or at least sometime during our lives in order to make sense of the meetings. I don't think that's true of everyone who has ever lived.
At 196 easily-read pages, it is a book well worth having on your bookshelf and to read every couple of years. And the last time I checked Amazon.com had used copies for as little as $0.01 plus shipping.
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