joelperry.com

Mitch Albom’s portrayal of the life of Eddie through a post mortem window is indeed an exemplification of that very concept. Through learning comes growth, and through Eddie’s reflective education in heaven, he comes to find ultimate peace and the answers to the random collisions of his existence. Through Eddie’s five lessons, each and every one us can enhance and learn the meaning of our own lives. I will explicate and offer a self evaluation to that effect. Eddie learns the extents of our intertwined and mutually impacting existence through the blue man; he learns of the equal or greater opportunity that results from adversity through the captain; through Ruby, he learns to let go of hatred and anger; through his wife he learns of enduring love; through Tala, he comes to realize the significance of his powerful purpose in life.

Recall a moment in time where either, someone uttered a kind word to you or, someone said something of impacting hurtfulness to you. Now it took one breath to cast the words, but how long did it take the receiver to get over it? Weeks, months, maybe you are still not over it. The point here is that everyone you met from that incident onward likely felt your happiness or anger, and in turn, they transferred that same feeling to everyone they met. Casual occurrences can cross the entire globe of humanity in such a way with no one knowing the better. Such was the case with the blue man. A young boy throws a ball, it is retrieved from the street, and blissful childhood play continues. Meanwhile back in the traffic, one man is shaken from the accident that almost ensued, he continues down the street, and in startled inattention, participates in the death of another driver, in this case, the blue man. Who is at fault here? Was it the startled driver, Eddie, the person who gave him the ball, or was it the stoplight that put the blue man in that location at that time? Who cares? The point here is that one thing always impacts another. Heaven only knows the number and amounts of calamity that have ensued just from my being in a bad mood. And inversely, heaven only knows how many lives have been changed for the better through nothing more than the utterance of words from my own mouth. The Key to remember here is that I do not live on a promontory in the middle of the ocean. I am impacting and being impacted by the lives of others as we read.

Eddie was plagued his entire life with the lost functionality of a leg that was shot during the war. What he found was that his own captain shot him to prevent him from an imminently life threatening self action. While he lost the partial use of his leg, Eddie gained much more; he gained the rest of his life. Finding the greater opportunity in adversity is probably one of the single hardest things for me to do while in the immediate midst of said adversity, but on reflection it seems stunningly clear. I had trouble in school as a child, and that struggle caused me to become a great adult scholar. I was picked on as the new child in all seven schools I attended before high school, and it made me a stronger man of moral strength and character than I would have been had I not suffered these travails. It has been said that in every adversity there is an equal or greater opportunity. Sometimes we take advantage of this opportunity, and sometimes we never notice the advantage, but keeping this lesson close to heart is the key to taking the greater good from adversity.

Eddie never really had a good relationship with his father. He looked up to him as any child would, but that love was not returned, and in effect, Eddie spent the rest of his life with this chip on his shoulder. It has been said that hate is a double edged sword; any vengeful pleasure we gain from it we pay for in twice the amount of damage to our own humanity. When Eddie learned to forgive his father, as his father forgave the man who attacked Eddie’s mother, he came to find peace in his heart and soul. I wasted a lot of my youth thinking about every jerk I ever met, and all it got me was a miserable constitution. I forgive them all; they had no idea what they were doing in the first place. Maybe they should have read Mitch’s book. The key lesson here is that when you let go of anger, the void you leave will be replaced by peace, and a more productive life.

When Eddie’s wife passed away, he lost the only person that he ever really loved. And when she left him, he lost the impact of that love in his life. What he did not realize was that she never left him. While she was watching him from heaven, she left him with the memories of their life together, and in this way their love never ended. It took death for Eddie to realize this, but we can learn something from this fact. While my wife is thirty minutes away, in reality, she is right beside me. I can feel her loving presence, and I hope she can feel mine. Death does not abolish love.

Eddie spent most of his life in utter regret of the fact that he was everything he never wanted to be, and none of what he did want to be. He had his father’s maintenance job, and he never went off to school to become an engineer. In fact, the last breath he drew was as that man he never wanted to be, but in that last breath was the true meaning of his life. He never realized that he served the most profoundly powerful purpose on this earth till he went to heaven, and then it took a little girl to show it to him. Eddie spent his life as a protector of children, and not only did they love him for it, but heaven only knows the number of life altering experiences he caused through his most worthy of roles. There is a verse in the book of John that goes something like “greater love hath no man than this, than that he give his life for his friends.” Eddie’s attempt to save Tala from the burning hut was of no avail, but his last act on this earth was that of putting the wisdom of Jesus Christ into action. Eddie indeed served a tremendous purpose in life, but it took death for him to arrive at this conclusion. What is the meaning and purpose in my life? If I died today, what would be my epitaph? I help people, and I have been reminded that some things I have done for others have had profound effects on their lives. To what extents, I will never know, but indeed when we look at the twine that binds all of our lives together, it is surely significant. As a great mind once said, “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” In that spirit, along with the fact that it may also be our last, we should act accordingly. Our impact and purpose in life began the day we were born, and it will not end until we leave this earth. We need not wait until the end to realize this, we can begin today.

As a result, the lessons that Eddie learns from his life can indeed enhance the meaning of our own lives. Realizing the communal impact of our actions can help to make us all better humans. Searching for the greater opportunity in every adversity can help us to live a richer existence today. Hatred is not a life enhancing tool, and just as Eddie forgave his father, and he his friend, forgiving those who hurt us will help us to live more productive lives. Love is not something that exists only when our beloved is in the room, it is ever present, and it endures even after death. Our purpose in life may be more significant than we realize. What good have you done today? What will be your epitaph? In an intertwined coexistence such as ours, we have the ability to serve out our meaningful and important purpose in life this very moment, and I see no greater significance in the life of some famous person or engineer than in Eddie the man that paid the ultimate sacrifice for a fellow human. Reading Mitch Albom’s book, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, has served me as a powerful reminder of the important things in life. If you are curious about meaning in your own life, give this book a try. Its words, and their lessons, will surely meet your ears with warm welcome. ~Joel Perry