In Mitch Albom’s novel, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, “Eddie is a grizzled war veteran who feels trapped in a meaningless life of fixing rides at a seaside amusement park…. Then, on his 83rd birthday, Eddie dies in a tragic accident, trying to save a little girl from a falling cart…. He awakens in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a lush Garden of Eden, but a place where your earthly life is explained to you by five people who were in it. These people may have been loved ones or distant strangers. Yet each of them changed your path forever.”
Who are YOUR five people, the five people YOU’LL meet in heaven? Whose life have you influenced? Who has influenced YOUR life?
Each class will be 1/3 book, 2/3 you. In the book segment of each class, we will discuss one of Eddie’s five people. In the YOU segment, you will have the opportunity, each week, to introduce us to one of YOUR five people. While reading, or rereading, Albom’s book will provide meaningful reference points, it is more important to be willing to participate and share, briefly, each week. Participation is certainly not mandatory, however. Retrospection, at our age, can be illuminating, to ourselves as well as to others. This course provides an opportunity to share that illumination.