PDF Summary:The Five People You Meet In Heaven, by Mitch Albom
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1-Page PDF Summary of The Five People You Meet In Heaven
The Five People You Meet in Heaven is a poignant story about a man named Eddie’s journey after death. In heaven, he meets five people who teach him about the meaning and value of his own life. Through their stories and lessons, Eddie learns about connection, forgiveness, sacrifice, and love.
Through this book, you’ll have the chance to imagine your own life’s purpose and the lives you’ve touched along the way. The author is Mitch Albom, best-selling author of Tuesdays with Morrie and The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto.
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The Captain’s Lesson
The Captain tells Eddie that he’s been waiting for him all this time because he has a lesson that Eddie needs to hear. He says that sacrifice is a part of life that we are meant to be proud of. He asks for Eddie’s forgiveness for shooting him in the leg. Realizing that the Captain sacrificed his own life to save Eddie’s, Eddie shakes the Captain’s hand.
Eddie’s Third Person: Ruby
Eddie finds himself on the top of a mountain. He can see the sign of a diner flickering in the distance, so he walks towards it. Inside, he sees his father sitting at a booth in the corner. Eddie tries to yell out to his dad, but gets no response.
An elegant old woman tells Eddie that he shouldn’t be angry at his father, because he can’t hear Eddie’s calls. The woman introduces herself as Ruby.
Ruby’s Story
Ruby left school at age fourteen to work in a diner called the Seahorse Grill. One day, a handsome, wealthy man named Emile came into the diner. Emile enjoyed risky investments and loved taking Ruby to fun places. When Ruby agreed to marry Emile, he promised to build her a theme park so that they could stay forever young. That is how Ruby Pier became built.
One night, Ruby Pier caught on fire. Emile was injured, and became depressed. Ruby moved their family away from Ruby Pier, and wished for the rest of her life that it had never been built.
Ruby tells Eddie that all things that happen and people who live before you’re born still have an effect on your life. She and Emile were the reason that Eddie worked at Ruby Pier. But that’s not what Ruby really wants to talk to Eddie about. She’s here to tell Eddie why his father died.
Eddie’s Father
All children become damaged to some degree by their parents. Over the course of his life, Eddie’s father damaged him through neglect, then violence, then silence. Eddie’s father rarely held Eddie. He would beat Eddie and his brother, Joe. One night, Eddie grabbed his father’s fist, instead of letting him hit Eddie like normal. That was the last time his father ever spoke to him.
On Eddie’s thirty-third birthday, Eddie’s mom called him to tell him that his father had collapsed and gone to the hospital. He eventually died of pneumonia after coming home drunk and wet from the ocean. Eddie was disappointed in his father’s unheroic death. When Eddie decided to move home to take care of his mother, he blamed his father for all of his disappointment at being stuck in Ruby Pier.
Ruby’s Lesson
Ruby shows Eddie the real reason for his father’s death: Eddie’s father jumped into the ocean to save his friend Mickey Shea. Mickey had gotten drunk and tried to kiss Eddie’s mother. Even though Eddie’s father had planned to hurt Mickey, he ultimately chose to save his life when he saw him fall into the ocean unconscious.
Ruby tells Eddie that he should learn from this story that holding onto anger is poisonous. You may think anger will act as a weapon toward others, but it only hurts you. She tells Eddie that he needs to forgive his father for all that he blamed him for.
So Eddie goes back into the diner and makes amends with his father.
Eddie’s Fourth Person: Marguerite
Eddie finds himself in a small, round room filled with doors. Behind each door is a different wedding in a different country. He enters one door to find a beautiful Italian wedding. Eddie sees a young woman handing out candied almonds. The woman is his wife, Marguerite.
Marguerite’s Story
Marguerite and Eddie met at Ruby Pier on Eddie’s seventeenth birthday. They fell in love, and she waited for him when he went away to war. They were married in a small Chinese restaurant and lived in Ruby Pier for their whole lives together. She always liked that they could see the Ferris wheel from their kitchen window.
Marguerite was unable to bear her own children, and she asked Eddie to adopt with her. Although he thought they were too old, he agreed to try. Just before they were about to adopt, Marguerite got into a car accident. She had been driving to the race track to apologize to Eddie for their fight. Her recovery took time, and they lost the chance to adopt. Their relationship suffered from blame and disappointment, and it took many years for them to get their love back.
When Marguerite was 47, she was diagnosed with cancer. Eventually, she died in the hospital. Eddie couldn’t help but feel angry that he lost his love so early.
Marguerite’s Lesson
Marguerite tells Eddie that even though she died, he still carried her love with him. Even though life has to end, that doesn’t mean love has to end. She assures Eddie that she could feel his love all this time, all the way in heaven.
Eddie and Marguerite dance together one last time before she disappears from his arms.
Eddie’s Fifth Person: Tala
Eddie is floating in a white place. He hears a squealing noise that has haunted his dreams for years, and he feels frightened. But then, the ground forms under his feet. He looks around and sees that the noise is actually the sound of thousands of children playing in a beautiful river. A small girl waves to Eddie, and he goes toward her. She says her name is Tala.
Tala’s Story
Tala notices the pipe cleaners in Eddie’s pocket, so he makes her a little dog. He asks if she likes it. Without answering, Tala tells Eddie that she used to have to hide from soldiers. She says, “You burn me.” Eddie knows that the shadow he saw in the flames on the day he was freed from captivity must have been Tala. He begins to sob.
Tala steps into the river and takes off her shirt to reveal that her body and face are covered with burns and scars. Eddie takes a stone and washes her little body until all of the scars are gone.
Tala uses her fingers to tell Eddie that she is his fifth person.
Tala’s Lesson
Eddie can’t help but cry when he looks into Tala’s eyes. She asks Eddie why his life was so sad. He says that he always felt as though he was meant to leave Ruby Pier, but couldn’t.
Tala tells Eddie that he was meant to stay at Ruby Pier. It was his job to keep children safe. This way, he could make up for the harm he caused Tala.
Finally, Eddie asks Tala if he was able to save the young girl at Ruby Pier before his death. Tala says he was able to push her out of the way of the falling car. Eddie is confused because he felt the girl’s small hands in his before he died. But Tala tells him that those were her hands pulling him into heaven.
The river waters begin to rise, and they carry Eddie away. When he emerges, he sees thousands of men, women, and children at Ruby Pier amusement park—all the people he has kept safe over the course of his life. Eddie floats up above the park. At the top of the Ferris wheel, Marguerite waits for him with open arms. Marguerite’s smile and the voices of the children down below are like a message from God: Eddie is home.
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PDF Summary The End Is the Beginning
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Eddie’s daydream of Marguerite is interrupted by a young girl with blonde curls. Eddie has seen her around the park many times before, but can’t remember her name. Annie? Amy? She asks him to make her an animal out of the pipe cleaners he is known to carry in his front pocket. He twists up a small, yellow bunny for her, and she dances away, smiling.
All of a sudden, Eddie hears screams and immediately knows something is wrong. Looking up, he sees the cart of the Freddy’s Free Fall ride dangling at a dangerous angle. The passengers are terrified. He calls to Dom and the rest of the park maintenance and security teams. He gives everyone directions of how to handle the situation. He tells them to evacuate the passengers from the ride, then send the broken cart down to be examined.
Eddie could never have known this, but a few months earlier, a young man lost his car key at Ruby Pier. He had been keeping it in his jacket pocket while he rode the rides. As it turns out, the key had fallen and become lodged in Freddy’s Free Fall and had been slowly wearing away at the cable. There was no way to see that this was happening. Every person’s story overlaps with someone else’s....
PDF Summary The Journey and Arrival
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Looking towards a large theater, Eddie realizes it’s the voice of a barker announcing a freak show. As a kid, Eddie always felt bad for the cast of the freak shows and how they were forced to sit behind bars while people pointed at them. For some reason, he still walks inside.
In the dark hall, he sees a man sitting alone. The man’s skin is blue. Eddie has seen this man before.
The Blue Man says, “Hello, Edward... I have been waiting for you.”
PDF Summary Eddie Meets His First Person
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The shame turned Joseph into a very nervous young man. He went to a chemist to try and find something to calm him. Joseph began taking a lot of silver nitrate, not knowing it was a poison that would turn his skin a strange shade of blue. Eventually, he was fired from his job and outcast because of his skin condition.
Joseph had no choice but to join a traveling carnival as the Blue Man in a sideshow act. Eventually, he was given the job in the freak show at Ruby Pier. While at Ruby Pier, he found stability. He was able to give up the traveling lifestyle. He made friends to play cards with. Some days, he was even able to walk the beach without being stared at.
The Blue Man explains to Eddie that Ruby Pier amusement park is not Eddie’s heaven. It’s Joseph’s heaven.
Every story has different angles. Like the story of Eddie’s seventh birthday. To Eddie, the story had a happy ending. He spent the rest of his birthday in the Ruby Pier arcade, playing with his brother. For the Blue Man, the story ended very differently.
On the day of Eddie’s birthday, the Blue Man had been practicing his driving in a friend’s Ford Model A. All of a sudden, he saw a baseball bouncing...
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Learn more about our summaries →PDF Summary Eddie Meets His Second Person
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The Captain was older than the other men in Eddie’s troop. He was relatively well-liked because he promised never to leave a man behind. Now under the Captain’s gaze, Eddie has to resist asking if he had killed him, too.
The Captain asks Eddie if he kept in touch with the guys they fought with in the war. Eddie admits that although they always promised to come see Ruby Pier, none of them ever did. The next question the Captain asks Eddie is if he can still juggle.
Eddie’s Memories of War
During the war, Eddie had to learn many lessons: how to march, how to pray quickly, how to spit, how to take a prisoner. But, he never learned how to be a prisoner himself. That is, until one night when he felt a cold rifle on the back of his neck.
Eddie was taken with the Captain and three other men: Smitty, Morton, and Rabozzo. They were marched to a bamboo hut and forced to stay there for months, sleeping on the ground and nearly starving. Each day they were tormented by their guards, whom they called Crazy One, Crazy Two, Crazy Three, and Crazy Four.
Eddie and the others were forced to mine coal under terrible conditions. Eventually, Rabozzo fell ill. One day, in the mine, he...
PDF Summary Eddie Meets His Third Person
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As Eddie grew older, his father would lash out at him and Joe whenever he was frustrated or drunk. Yelling at his mother to stay out of it, Eddie’s dad would throw things or hit them with a belt. This was the damage of violence.
Through it all, Eddie continued to adore his father and long for his approval. Sometimes, he even earned it. When his father asked him to fix something, Eddie would do so, come back, and say “it’s fixed.” This earned him a small smile. When he would win in a fight, his father would give him the slightest nod. Eddie would just nod back. In this way, Eddie learned that his father wanted everything to be kept inside, denying all words of affection.
After the war, the silence took over completely. It happened one night after Eddie had moved home from the hospital. Since being back, Eddie had been depressed—barely able to talk to anyone or even to leave the house. His father didn’t approve. He considered sadness a sign of weakness. That night, Eddie’s father began yelling at him, as he used to. He screamed at Eddie to get up and get a job. But when his father raised his fist to hit him, Eddie grabbed his arm and stopped him for the first...
PDF Summary Eddie Meets His Fourth Person
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Marguerite comes to the door of the shop wearing her Ruby Pier uniform. Seeing her in the red vest and beret makes Eddie embarrassed in front of Joe. But Marguerite smiles and asks Eddie to step outside with her. When he does, there is a group of children waiting to shout happy birthday to him.
Eddie is touched. He loves seeing Marguerite around children. He knows it’s a shame that she can’t bear any of her own. She’s been asking him to consider adoption, but he feels they’re too old.
Marguerite and the kids light 38 candles on top of the messy cake. A child pokes Eddie and tells him to blow them all out and once. He looks at his wife and says “I will.” Marguerite takes a Polaroid photo of the moment.
Eddie stares at Marguerite and cannot believe that it’s really her. She holds his hand and assures Eddie that it is really her, and he cries on her shoulder.
Every man and woman has a certain kind of love, one of love’s many forms. Eddie’s love for Marguerite was grateful and deep, but also quiet. After he lost her, the rest of his days were dull. Now, Eddie is standing in front of his wife again. She is as young and beautiful as on their wedding...
PDF Summary Eddie Meets His Fifth Person
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Eddie’s Final Lesson
The little girl standing before Eddie has beautiful, dark skin and arresting black eyes. She waves her hands excitedly to Eddie. Her name is Tala. He repeats, “Tala.” Then she begins to name things in her own language and Eddie imitates each word.
Eddie sees the other children in the water around them. They are bathing with stones. Tala says that is how their mothers used to wash them. Then Tala notices pipe cleaners in Eddie’s shirt. He twists up a little dog for her. He asks her if she likes the toy, but she answers “You burn me.”
Tala tells Eddie that she used to have to hide from soldiers. Eddie is horrified because he knows that she was the shadow he saw in the flames the day of his escape from captivity. Looking into Tala’s eyes, he is heartbroken. He begins to sob and wail, asking for forgiveness for the things he’s done. Eddie continues to weep while Tala plays with her pipe cleaner dog.
Tala hands Eddie a stone and asks him to wash her. She removes her shirt and Eddie is startled to see that her skin is burned and scarred. As he washes her with the stone, the scars begin to fall away.
Tala uses her fingers to tell Eddie that she is his...
PDF Summary Epilogue
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One of the people waiting in line to explain to the girl with curls why she lived is an old man named Eddie who she’ll meet in the Stardust Band Shell. Someday, he’ll share with her what he’s learned: that every person’s story affects the next person’s story. In fact, all the stories are one.
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