The Five People You Meet In Heaven

I was at my girlfriend's place today to spend some time. Have been recently neglecting her due to my different and unfortunately less than optimal time 'rearrangement'. =P Well, to be fair I did try ;-) but it wasn't really 'quality' time to her. Rather I was trying to bribe her with movies which are usually rushed and late at night taking up most of the time spent together leaving zero (0) time to chat. So there I was trying to make up for it by my presence when I realize it's pretty boring because she had to finish up some presentation slides and I did not want to interrupt her doing that.

Well, what does a bored one do? He finds anything readable to pass the time and that's how I stumbled upon this gem of a book called "The Five People You Meet In Heaven" by Mitch Albom. The book tells the story of an old man working at an amusement park who died attempting to rescue a young girl during an accident. Subsequently, the old man found out that heaven is not as we presumed all this while. Instead of our standard vision of heaven as a place where souls mingle and chat like people on earth, it is a far, far better place where one can find real peace of mind and can lay to rest all earthly concerns. However before this old man reaches that stage, he had to go through several ‘trials’ regarding his life on earth. This is a true rare find among all the standard fare dished out by authors today (or rather by the authors of the books I usually read =p which are science fiction and fantasy). As I finished reading it, I was misty-eyed.

This is a really good book to read for that warm fuzzy feeling and to remind ourselves of what being human is all about. It reminds us of the intricate web that binds each and everyone of us together.

I got to go wash my face now.

** BTW, this is offline entry on 17 July 2005 =p not now lar, now at work.