Legacies and afterlives – “The Five People You Meet In Heaven”

By Tami Falope

To me, a legacy can be thought of as the footprints we leave behind from our walking through life. These footprint trails intersect wherever we meet with the lives of others; no trail exists entirely separated from the rest, uninterrupted and uncrossed. These trails are the concern of Albom’s The Five People You Meet in Heaven captures so beautifully. In everyday moments our legacies are taking shape- through the lives we pour into, and through those who have poured their lives into ours. Our legacies are both an inheritance and an offering and through the protagonist Eddie – who dies, and meets 5 people in Heaven, we learn the extraordinary trail we are capable of leaving.

The Blue Man

He and Eddie were strangers. Yet, the Blue Man risked and lost his life because of young Eddie’s innocent childhood mistake. Eddie is what ‘continued’ because the Blue Man was there. Part of the Blue Man’s legacy, therefore, is Eddie. The Blue Man leaves us with a powerful lesson when Eddie deems it desperately tragic that he lost his life for a stranger – “strangers are just family you have yet to come to know.” This belief became the echo of the Blue Man’s legacy. It travelled onwards, through Eddie’s life; his footprints. Albom shows us here that our legacies can continue in the lives of others, and we may be unknowingly walking in the legacies of others too.

Captain

When fighting in WWII, Eddie’s Captain sacrifices his life for Eddie and a few other soldiers. In Heaven, he tells Eddie that in sacrifice, one must not think about what they lost. Eddie spent his life angry about what he sacrificed in the war. But his Captain teaches him that sacrifice is something that honours the legacy of those on both sides of it. Big sacrifices. Small sacrifices. A daughter moving home to take care of her father. When someone sacrifices, it is like they are saying, “I am not simply wandering on an idle path but contributing to the paths of others”. Captain says, “sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you are not really losing it but passing it on to someone else”. In sacrifice, we can gain something, a chance to love, a possibility for someone else, our legacy passed on.

Ruby

Her own life was the reason for the designing of the amusement park where Eddie worked his whole life – her legacy becoming the unseen foundation upon which his was built. In Heaven, she teaches Eddie what his earthly perspective didn’t allow him to see: ‘Release anger’. We miss out on building our own lives, loving others, and more, when we are focusing on anger. It can have the power to therefore taint your own legacy – not theirs – if you allow it to make you bitter towards life.

Marguerite

Eddie believed that when his wife Marguerite died, his life ended; that he had lost her love forever. She reminds him that love can “change form”. What existed between them did not become meaningless because she died. Love already transcends the physical, and in legacy, we can still love a person – allowing what we treasured and loved about them to inspire us, as we carry lessons from that person close to our heart, and offer pieces of them again to the lives we encounter, weaving their footsteps into another’s. Death may end the physical but does not end someone’s participation in the world – and that captures the essence of legacy.

Tala

Tala epitomises a key part of Eddie’s legacy. A young child, whom he wanted to keep safe. Eddie says, “I was nothing”, but Tala says “no you were supposed to be there. Children. You keep them safe”. Inspecting rides, tightening bolts, checking machinery, the simple, mundane things Eddie had done in his life. Then on the final page, Albom conjures the heartwarming image of the pier – filled with thousands of people, so many children, hand in hand. They were there because of Eddie. His life did have purpose.

Albom beautifully reminds us not to fall blind to the extraordinary reach of even the ordinary moments. We may never see how a small act of radical kindness we offer someone on a random Tuesday could restore hope, alter their perspective or inspire a kindness that reaches someone we will never meet. We rarely get to see the full distance our footprints travel, but we can be intentional about the ones we leave.

Image Credit: Acroterion (Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)