Just finished reading Mitch Albom's the five people you meet in heaven. a very delightful read. sentimental. thought provoking. tear-jerking towards the end. here are my favourite quotes. incidentally, the five lessons Eddie (and I) would learn.

The Blue Man smiled. “No, Edward. You are here so I can teach you something. All the people you meet here have one thing to teach you… 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.”

“Strangers,” the Blue Man said, “are just family you have yet to come to know.”

“Sacrifice is a part of life. It’s supposed to be. It’s not something to regret. It’s something to aspire to. Little sacrifices. Big sacrifices. A mother works so her son can go to school. A daughter moves home to take care of her sick father.”

“sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you’re not really losing it. You’re just passing it on to someone else.”

Ruby stepped toward him. “Edward,” she said softly. It was the first time she had called him by name. “learn this from me. Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from inside. We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harm we do, we do to ourselves.”

“lost love is still love, Eddie. It takes a different from, that’s all. You can’t see their smile or bring them food or tousle their hair or move them around a dance floor. But when those senses weaken, another heightens. Memory. Memory becomes your partner. You nurture it. You hold it. You dance with it. Life has to end,” she said. “Love doesn’t.”

“Is where you were supposed to be,” she said, and then she touched his shirt patch with a small laugh and added two words, “Eddie Main-ten-ance.”