The Crossroads of Life

People often don't realize the significance of their decisions and the way their choices impact other people. The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom shows how all lives are connected and how one choice affects another. When Eddie reaches heaven, he meets Joseph Corvelzchik, referred to as the Blue Man. The Blue Man states, "'That there are no random acts. That we are all connected. That you can no more separate one life from another than you can separate a breeze from the wind.'" All lives may be separate, but this quote means that all lives are linked through the decisions people make. Lives can be changed through sacrifice, loyalty, or even simple everyday choices.

     In The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Eddie encounters many situations in which his life was effected by other peoples' choices, yet sometimes he was unaware of it. The Captain, the second person Eddie meets in heaven, sacrifices his life to save Eddie and the other men that escaped from the captors. As stated in the novel, "The path was clear. He waved to his men...a small click sounded beneath his right foot. The land mine exploded instantly..." If the Captain had not gone ahead and stepped on the land mine, the whole group of men would have been killed. This shows that by sacrificing his own life, the Captain saved several other people including Eddie. This one decision affected Eddie's life, along with many others, in numerous ways.

The third person Eddie meets in heaven is Ruby, and he later finds out that Ruby Pier was named after her. According to the novel, "'If not for Emile, I would have no husband. If not for our marriage, there would be no pier. If there'd been no pier, you would not have ended up working there.'" This is an example of how even a person's choices from years before Eddie was ever born affected his life and many others. Ruby also explained to Eddie parts of his father's life that he was unaware of. She explains that he witnessed his friend harassing his wife and then later rescues him after almost drowning. After getting out of the water, Eddie's father lay there, wet, in the sand for a while. His body was vulnerable and weak, and he eventually died from pneumonia. After making the decision to be loyal to his friend and save his life, it cost him his own.

These are examples of how all lives are affected by another persons' choices and actions. According to the novel, "...children from the past and the present, children who had not yet been born...They were there, or would be there, because of the simple, mundane things Eddie had done in his life, the accidents he prevented, the rides he had kept safe, the unnoticed turns he had affected every day." The people on the pier represent everyone Eddie affected during his lifetime, and it is proof that we affect everyone around us in countless ways every single day.