During the fifth lesson, Tala tells Eddie that his life did have a purpose: he was meant to work at Ruby Pier and keep the children safe.
Lesson 5: The purpose of life. From his own perspective, Eddie had a disappointing and unspectacular life. He thought he didn't live to his potential. And, he thought his life was a complete failure.
He says that all five people that Eddie will come across in heaven have one lesson to teach him: that all lives are connected and nothing is completely random. The Blue Man lifts his hand and suddenly they are standing in the cemetery where he was buried.
Eddie's fifth person in heaven, a little Filipino girl who Eddie unknowingly kills while he and his unit are escaping captivity during the war. Tala is affectionate, trusting, and wise.
Redemption and Forgiveness
Throughout the novel, Eddie's encounters with the five people he meets in heaven teach him about the surprising ways in which life and death offer opportunities for redemption.
WHAT WAS THE LAST LESSON EDDIE LEARNED? TALA TAUGHT EDDIE THAT HE DID SAVE THE LITTLE GIRL. SHE ALSO TOLD HIM HOW HIS LIFE HAD MUCH IMPORTANCE, HE KEPT CHILDREN LIKE HER SAFE. HOW OLD WAS EDDIE WHEN HE DIED?
The lesson gleaned from the Blue Man is that all lives are interconnected on some level. Eddie's running out into the street to grab his baseball seemed mundane enough to him, even if he was almost hit by a car. For the Blue Man, however, that experience affected the course his life took.
The fifth person Eddie meets in heaven. Tala was the little girl who Eddie saw crawling into the burning fort during the war. Although he lived most of his life in denial, he finds out in heaven that he did kill her in the fire.
Eddie made his sacrifice when he took over his father's job at the Pier and moved into his parents' building to keep an eye on his mother after his father died.
Eddie's Fourth Lesson
Marguerite asks Eddie if he was angry with her when she died and left him alone. He tries to deny it, but has to admit that he was angry to have to lose the woman he loved so young. She takes his hands and tells him that he didn't lose her—she was always with him.
In heaven, Ruby tells Eddie the true story of how his father died saving Mickey, and teaches him the lesson of forgiveness.
Eddie is a grizzled war veteran who feels trapped in a meaningless life of fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. As the park has changed over the years -- from the Loop-the-Loop to the Pipeline Plunge -- so, too, has Eddie changed, from optimistic youth to embittered old age.
While escaping captivity, the Captain shoots Eddie in the leg because he believes it is the only way he can get Eddie to leave with them. During the escape the Captain is trying to clear a path for his unit to get out, and he is killed by a landmine.
Eddie saves the little girl - We find out at the end of the novel that Eddie did save the little girl from the falling amusement cart. It is important to note the symbolism of this child's rescue.
In heaven, the last person Eddie meets is a little girl named Tala. She reveals that she was killed at Eddie's hands during the war—she was the small shadow Eddie saw moving in the flaming hut. Eddie falls into a deep despair, now believing that he deserved the darkness he felt all of his life.
Eddie asks why the Blue Man is his first person, and he informs Eddie that, when Eddie was very young, he caused the car accident that killed him. From this, Eddie learns his first lesson: there are no random events in life and all individuals and experiences are connected in some way.
Eddie's Second Person: The Captain
Eddie army crawls through the mud to hide under a bush. After a while, he hears a familiar voice from high in the tree above him. Eddie is carried up into the tree, and sees his old Captain from the war. This is the second of the 5 People You Meet in Heaven.
What is Eddie's last memory of being alive? His last memory is the tower cart falling, Amy/Annie crying and Eddie lunging and hitting pavement. Describe what Eddie sees when he dies.
5. Tala: Eddie's life had a purpose; he kept children safe at the pier.) 3. Is it possible that Eddie's Five People each teach him more than one lesson? (Yes, it is possible that each person taught Eddie more than one thing.
Eddie's breathing had changed and doctors said he didn't have much time left. She described Eddie's passing as coming in "slow motion." "'I love you' are the last words Ed says to Wolfie and me, and they are the last words we say to him before he stops breathing," Bertinelli writes.
The kicker of it all? Eddie's final words to Dustin: "I love you, man." If those words weren't already bringing on the waterworks, Dustin tearfully replies "I love you, too." And then Eddie is gone. The impact of those words in that moment could not have been more perfectly heartbreaking.
Eddie's third lesson is to let go of anger and forgive his father. He finds himself back in the diner where he saw his father. He tells him that he forgives him by saying "it's fixed" (144).
The Captain teaches Eddie that sacrifice is part of life, that it is supposed to happen and it is not something we should regret.
Ruby in The Five People You Meet in Heaven, helps Eddie come to terms with his relationship with his father. All children become damaged to some degree by their parents. Over the course of his life, Eddie's father damaged him through neglect, then violence, then silence.