The Five People You Meet in
Heaven
Vocabulary & Notes
Reflection
• With a partner, discuss the following:
▫ Where do you think authors gain the inspiration
for their novels?
▫ “It’s a tale of a life on earth. It’s a tale of life
beyond it. It’s a fable about love, a warning about
war, and a nod of the cap to the real people of this
world, the ones who never get their name in
lights.”
 So, what are some of the topics that Mitch Albom
might be touching upon in this novel?
Author Background: Mitch Albom
• Who is Mitch Albom?
▫ Best-selling author, journalist, screenwriter, playwright,
radio and television broadcaster, and musician
▫ In 1985, moved to Detroit and became a famous sports
journalist at the Detroit Free Press.
▫ Currently hosts a daily talk show on WJR radio.
▫ Regularly shows up on the shows: ESPN Sports
Reporters and SportsCenter.
▫ Founded seven charities in the metropolitan Detroit
area.
▫ Began his career as an author after reuniting with Morrie.
▫ Has three best seller novels that became TV movies:
 The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Tuesdays with Morrie, and For
One More Day
Video Introduction
• http://www.cbsnews.com/news/mitch-albom-onlife-charity-and-god/
• http://mitchalbom.com/d/film/3730/five-peopleyou-meet-heaven
Vocabulary (Pages 1-31)
• Squat (adj.): short and thick or low and wide,
especially in a way which is not attractive
• Retrieve (verb): to find something and bring it
back
• Imminent (adj.): when an event, likely
unpleasant, is about to happen soon
• Solvent (n.):a substance, usually liquid, that
dissolves or can dissolve another substance
Arthritis (noun): a disease that causes the
joints of your body to become swollen and
very painful
Shingles (noun): a
disease caused by
an infection of the
nerve endings,
which produces
painful red spots
Lanky (adj.):someone who is lanky
is tall and thin, and moves
awkwardly
Pier (noun): a
structure that is
built over and into
the water so that
boats can stop next
to it or people can
walk along it
Halibut (noun):
a large flat sea
fish used as food
Vocabulary (Pages 1-31)
• Nimble (adj.): able to move quickly and easily with
light neat movements
• Summon (verb): to order someone to come to a
place
• Agony (noun): very severe pain
• Cacophony (noun): a loud unpleasant mixture of
sounds
Judy Garland: (1922-69) a US
film actress and singer who first
appeared in films as a child. She
is most famous for appearing as
the character Dorothy in The
Wizard of Oz.
Taffy
(noun):
soft, chewy,
sweet food
Unravel (verb):
when threads,
string, rope, etc.,
stop being
twisted together
- Ex: Unraveled
cable wire
Vocabulary (Pages 1-31)
• Primitive (adj.): very simple, does not have modern
parts to make it better
• Pristine (adj.): extremely fresh or clean; not
damaged in any way
• Limber (adj.): able to move and bend easily
• Perversion (noun): the process of changing
something that is natural and good into something
that is unnatural and wrong, or the result of such a
change
Kiosk (noun): a small
building in the street
where newspapers,
sweets etc are sold
Promenade
(noun): a
wide road
next to the
beach,
where
people can
walk for
pleasure
Tenement (noun): a large building divided into
apartments, especially in the poorer areas of a
city
Notes (Pages 1-31)
• Story starts with an ending (Eddie’s death)
• Setting- sunny, at amusement park, summer
• Eddie’s death – accident involving Freddy’s Free Fall
• Eddie:
▫
▫
▫
▫
▫
a workingman (a maintenance man)
white-haired old man, army tattoo, left knee wounded in war,
job was to “maintain” the rides
dies on his 83rd birthday,
regular customers knew him, children loved him, teenagers did
not love him
Notes (Pages 1-31)
• Foreshadowing: p.2 – After all these years he could
hear trouble…
• Onomatopoeia: p.4 – clack-clack-clack
• Dominguez: lanky, boney-cheeked, young man,
optimistic
• Eddie planned to leave the pier, but his plans never
worked out.
▫ He came to the acceptance that this was his life and
being a maintenance man was all he would ever be“got stuck,” “settled”
• Eddie gives Dominguez money for his vacation
▫ We can infer that they are friends, only friend Eddie
has
Notes (Pages 1-31)
•
•
•
•
Onomatopeoia: p.8 zzzap zzzap
P.8 – teenagers do not respect him
Marguerite- what assumption can you make?
Theme (p.10) – connectedness (everything in life is
connected in some way)
• Foreshadowing (p.11)- the missing key…how?
▫ Key is also demonstrates the theme of connectedness
• Eddie leads a lonely life
▫ Nearly lost everyone he cared about
• Final words- “Get back”
Notes (Pages 1-31)
• P. 18- example 2 of the theme – the little girl ..how?
• Last thing Eddie felt before his death- two hands in his own
• Italicized sections represent flashbacks of Eddie’s life.
• The Journey
▫ Eddie’s journey to heaven- feels no emotion, sadness or pain;
feels calm like a child
▫ Eddie’s Fifth Birthday
▫ Mickey Shea- works with his father; alcoholic
▫ What can you infer about Eddie’s relationship with his parents?
Notes (Pages 1-31)
• The Arrival:
▫ Woke up in a teacup; at Ruby Pier 75 years ago
▫ No pain, doesn’t need a cane, BUT can’t speak
(has no voice)
▫ Hears a voice coming from the sideshow, also
known as the freak house
▫ A man with blue skin tells Eddie that he as been
waiting for him.
Vocabulary (Pages 32-55)
• Grotesque (adjective): unpleasant, shocking, and
offensive; extremely ugly in a strange or unnatural way
(Example: The Blue Man)
• Belittle (verb): to make someone or something seem
small or unimportant
• Silver nitrate (noun): A poisonous colorless crystalline
compound, AgNO3, that becomes grayish black when
exposed to light in the presence of organic matter and is
used in manufacturing photographic film, silvering
mirrors, dyeing hair, plating silver, and in medicine as a
cautery (burning dead tissue) and antiseptic
Silver Nitrate
Vocabulary (Pages 32-55)
• Agitated (adjective): so nervous or upset that
you are unable to keep still or think calmly
• Commodity (noun): a product that is bought or
sold; a useful quality or thing
• Relent (verb): to change your attitude and
become less strict or cruel towards someone
Notes (Pages 32-55)
• Eddie had barely known the blue man.
• Eddie’s body feels like a child’s because that is when he knew
the Blue Man . You start with the same feelings you had.
• Heaven has steps. The Blue man is in two, Eddie is in one
• You can not talk so that you can listen
• Why is Eddie in Heaven:
▫ To meet 5 people
▫ Each was in his life for a reason… you may not know it at the
time, so that is what heaven is for. For understanding your life on
earth
▫ How does the Blue Man say people think of heaven?
 - place to have your life explained to you
Notes (Pages 32-55)
• The Blue Man is the first person Eddie meets: he went through five
people and waited in heaven for Eddie to tell him his story, which is a
part of Eddie’s.
• Some people he knew, some he didn’t BUT they all changed his life
forever.
• Blue Man tells Eddie that he killed him.
• Flashback - Eddie’s 7th birthday –
▫ Receives a new baseball as his present…ball is overthrown and Eddie and
Joe chase after it
• Theme of connectedness: the baseball he received on his seventh
birthday
• The Blue Man: Immigrant from Poland, had no money growing up,
nervous child by nature, father worked in a sweatshop and eventually
joined him, wet his pants at his father’s work and father refused to
speak to him- he had shamed him… became a nervous young man
Notes (Pages 32-55)
• The Blue Man went to a chemist for medicine for his nerves ->
gave him silver nitrate (later considered poison) -> mix with
water and take every night
• It wasn’t working, so he took more than he was supposed to =
skin was turning the color of ash and turned from gray to
blue- side effect of the poison
• Got fired -> ran into carnival workers one night and agreed to
join their carnival -> then later came to Ruby Pier and that
became his home
• They are at Ruby Pier because that is where heaven is for the
Blue Man. This is not Eddie’s heaven
Notes (Pages 32-55)
• Same story- two different angles, two different
endings, one happy and one sad
• Eddie’s side:
▫ Playing baseball with his friends -> ball flies over
Eddie’s head -> runs into the street chasing after it
-> runs in front of a car
▫ The car screeches and veers and just misses him.
▫ Then, he goes back to his friends as if nothing
happened and continues on with his friends
Notes (Pages 32-55)
• Blue Man’s side:
▫ Borrows a car to practice driving, road is wet, and suddenly a baseball
and a boy appear in front.
▫ Slams on the brakes -> car skids -> man regains control of the car
▫ Sees in the rearview mirror the boy has disappeared but the man’s
body is still affected from almost hitting the boy.
▫ Experiences a jolt of adrenaline -> heart is pumping too fast -> feels
dizzy -> drops his head, and almost collides with another car.
▫ The man veers -> slams his brakes -> and the car skids until it
collides with the back of a parked truck
▫ The crash causes the man to smack into the steering wheel, and his
head is bleeding -> Gets out -> sees the damage -> collapses -> has a
heart attack and dies.
Notes (32-55)
• Flashback:
▫ Eddie’s 8th birthday
 Eddie is mad that he has to go somewhere on his
birthday and doesn’t think it is fair
 He knows he is supposed to be sad, but instead is
mad, and counting down until it is over.
 Little does he know that he is at the Blue Man’s
funeral, the man he unknowingly killed
The First Lesson
• Eddie thinks he is in heaven for justice, to pay for his sin.
• Blue Man is really there to teach him something.
• Lesson 1: There are no random acts in life. We are all
connected.
• Fairness is not involved in life and death.
• Eddie was at his funeral and didn’t even know it.
• The good from the Blue Man’s death is that Eddie lived.
Connecting Art & Literature
• Michelangelo’s “The Last Judgment”
Connection
• Explain how artists have been depicting heaven
and hell for centuries. How does the media
perceive the afterlife?
• How does Eddie perceives heaven as a place for
punishment and the prevalence of this notion in
today’s society.
• Are there other depictions of the afterlife in
contrast to paradise vs hell?
Author’s View of Heaven
People think of heaven as a paradise garden, a place where they can
float on clouds and laze in rivers and mountains. But scenery without solace
is meaningless.
"This is the greatest gift God can give you: to understand what
happened in your life. To have it explained. It is the peace you have been
searching for."
Eddie coughed, trying to bring up his voice. He was tired of being
silent.
"I am your first person, Edward. When I died, my life was illuminated
by five others, and then I came here to wait for you, to stand in your line, to
tell you my story, which becomes part of yours. There will be others for you,
too. Some you knew, maybe some you didn't. But they all crossed your path
before they died. And they altered it forever."
Do-Now
• Explain how action and consequence are
connected.
Writing Assignment
“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.”
▫ Explain this quote in your own words.
▫ Then, relate this idea to your own life.
 For example: How different would life be if you
didn’t meet your: best friend, your sibling, or a
certain role-model?
Vocabulary
• Bandolier (noun): a belt that goes over someone's shoulder
and is used to carry bullets
• Oblige (verb): when someone does something because they
have to and it is necessary
• Bayonet (noun): a long knife that is fixed to the end of a
rifle
• Burlap (noun): a type of thick rough cloth
• Barracks (noun): a building or group of buildings in which
soldiers live
• Diversion (noun): something that stops you from paying
attention to what you are doing or what is happening
Bandolier
Bayonet
Burlap
Barracks 
Notes (P. 56-97)
• Eddie’s body is now changing
▫ No longer limber- muscles are tight
• Acting like a soldier
• “Fear had found him, even in heaven.”
• Mother’s reaction to war vs. father’s reaction to war
▫ Mother cares, father is distant
• Had a goal before the war- to study engineering
• Eddie thought war would make him a man.
• Mickey Shea’s advice: thinking gets you killed
Notes (P. 56-97)
• Second Person: Eddie’s Captain from the war
(his commanding officer)
▫ Was not expecting him
• Captain’s promise- “leave no one behind”
• Eddie tells the Captain that he still does not
understand why he is in heaven.
• Eddie did not keep in touch with the men in his
unit.
▫ Hurt too much
Notes (P. 56-97)
• Eddie and his unit were captured:
▫ Kept in a coal mine
▫ All had different reactions to being captured
• 4 months in- Rabozzo gets really sick
▫ Shot by captors
• Rabozzo’s death really affects Eddie
▫ Stops praying and counting the days
• Thought they were going to die there.
• Eddie gets himself and the unit free by creating a diversion.
▫ Pretends to sing a melody- really telling his men to be ready to
attack
▫ Grabbed a rock -> threw it at Crazy Two -> killed all of the
Crazies
▫ Revenge
Notes (P. 56-97)
• Eddie and his men burned down the huts, mines,
and surrounding areas
• Eddie goes into a burning barn
▫ Thinks he sees a small child; convinced he sees
someone
▫ Hallucinating
▫ Lost his mind at this point; reached his breaking
point
▫ Burning in the barn-> gets shot in the knee and
dragged out of the burning barn
Notes (P. 56-97)
• Eddie feels a rush of pain and anger; scars return
▫ Eddie tackles the Captain, and they wrestle through the vines
• Why?
▫
▫
▫
▫
Eddie would have died
Wasn’t his time
Only had a minute to get out
Captain took his leg to save his life (Sacrifice)
• Got into the transport vehicle -> reached a gate
▫ Captain got out to check the path
▫ Signaled the men to move forward- path was clear
▫ Captain stepped on a land mine and blew to pieces
Notes (P. 56-97)
THE SECOND LESSON:
• Captain has been waiting at his burial ground
• Dying is not the end; Earth is only the beginning
• Heaven is to make sense of your yesterdays
• Sacrifice- Eddie made one, Captain made BUT
Eddie was angry and kept thinking of his losses
• “Sacrifice is a part of life. It’s supposed to be. It’s
not something to regret. It’s something you
aspire to. Little sacrifices. Big sacrifices.”
Notes (P. 56-97)
THE SECOND LESSON:
• Rabozzo- sacrificed his life BUT his brother became
a great solider and a great man- inspired
• Captain did not die for nothing- they all would’ve
died
• Captain was waiting for Eddie’s forgiveness
• Captain’s heaven:
▫ Wanted to see a world without war
▫ War zone came to life- green grass, blue sky
▫ The captain sees where he dies differently than Eddie
Vocabulary (Pages 98-119)
• Firmament (noun): the sky or heaven
• Succulent (adj): juicy and good to eat
• Gurney (noun): a long narrow table with wheels used for moving
sick people in a hospital
• Solitude (noun): when you are alone, especially when this is what
you enjoy
• Entrust (verb): to make someone responsible for doing
something important, or for taking care of someone
• Meager (adj): when the amount of something is too small and is
much less than you need
Vocabulary (Pages 98-119)
• Callous (adj): not caring that other people are suffering
• Mimic (verb): to copy the way someone speaks or
behaves, especially in order to make people laugh
• Unbeknownst (adverb): without that person knowing
about it
• Inexplicable (adj): too unusual or strange to be explained
or understood
• Covet (verb): to have a very strong desire to have
something that someone else has
Vocabulary (Pages 98-119)
• Bodice (noun): the part of a woman's dress
above her waist
• Parasol (noun): a type of umbrella used to
provide shade from the sun
• Agitation(noun): when you are so anxious,
nervous, or upset that you cannot think calmly:
Notes (Pages 98-119)
• Eddie is now in the mountains with snow
• Physical changes: older; body is flabbier, looser
▫ Becoming the man he was on Earth
▫ Knee pain is still there
• Stumbles upon a diner
▫ People in there are from different decades and
everyone has been wounded
▫ Looks over and sees his dad
▫ Significance in the way his dad is sitting:
 Ignoring him even in heaven
Notes (Pages 98-119)
• Eddie’s 24th birthday:
▫ Only his mother is singing
▫ His father doesn’t move to sit- just stands and stares
out the window
▫ Continues to stare at his leg- disappointed in him
▫ Why does Eddie want to cry?
• Damage done by Eddie’s father:
▫
▫
▫
▫
▫
Neglect as an infant (wouldn’t hold him)
Grabbed him by the arm as a child
Left for someone to watch at the pier
Father = discipline
Eddie wanted his father’s attention
Notes (Pages 98-119)
• His father played cards 4 nights a week
▫ Involved drinking
▫ Would smack Eddie across the face
• When his father drank, he physically and verbally abused
Eddie and Joe:
▫ Yelled, whipped with a belt, throw them against the wall,
throw their toys around the room
▫ Damage #2: Violence
• Privately adored his father = how you learn devotion
• Told Eddie he had to protect his brother; be his “keeper”
Notes (Pages 98-119)
• Eddie started following his father’s footsteps in junior
high
▫
▫
▫
▫
Ran the rides
Began to fix things
Envied his brother for not having to do dirty work
Eddie’s father thought Joe was not strong enough for
his line of work.
• Damage #3: Denial of affection
• The night Eddie and his father stopped speaking:
▫ “Get a job”
▫ FIRST time Eddie defends himself – grabs his father’s
arm
▫ Damage #4: Silence
Notes (Pages 98-119)
• Eddie meets an old woman who tells him that
his father can’t hear him.
▫ His soul is safe..part of the woman’s eternity
• Eddie still does not understand why he is heaven
▫ Asks the woman if he can go back to his last day
▫ “This place” makes no sense to him.
▫ Does not feel like an angel
• You have peace when you make it with yourself
• Eddie does not know this woman, but she knows
him
Notes (Pages 98-119)
• Old woman:
▫ Worked at Seahorse Grille
▫ Eddie used to eat breakfast there.
▫ Met Emile- earned his wealth, swore to build a
resort park just for her to capture the moment of
his proposal and to stay forever young
▫ Kept his promise and built a lavish amusement for
her and name it “Ruby Pier.”
• Eddie’s third person = Ruby
Vocabulary (Pages 120-147)
• Roustabouts (noun): a man who does work for which he needs to be strong
but not skilled, especially in a port, an oilfield, or a circus
• Fruitless (adj): failing to achieve what was wanted, especially after a lot of
effort
• Recede (verb): when something gets further and further away until it
disappears
• Falter (verb): to become weaker and unable to continue in an effective way
• Coarse (adj): having a rough surface that feels slightly hard
• Subsequent (adj): happening or coming after something else
• Haltingly (adverb): if your speech or movements are halting, you stop for a
moment between words or movements, especially because you are not
confident
Notes (120-145)
• A big July 4th fire destroyed the original Ruby Pier
entrance, and Ruby Pier was in flames.
• A column collapsed onto Emile when he insisted on
going to the fire and throwing water on the entrance
because it was Ruby.
▫
▫
▫
▫
▫
▫
Lives changed in one night
Minimal insurance- lost his fortune and the pier
Park was reopened but wasn’t theirs anymore
Took Emile 3 years to walk on his own
They moved away, lived modestly, Ruby tended to Emile
Ruby’s wish: That Emile had never built the pier
Notes (120-145)
• Emile was sickly…Ruby widowed at 50
• Never wanted to see Ruby Pier again
▫ Ruby’s idea of heaven (p.123): far away from the ocean and
back in that diner when days were simple
• We go through places that would not be if not for those
that came before us:
▫ No Emile, then no husband. If no marriage, no pier. If no
pier, Eddie would not have worked there.
• Ruby is here to tell Eddie why his father died.
• Phone call from Eddie’s mother
▫ Father collapsed, raging fever
▫ A few days earlier- his father came home soaking wet,
developed a bad cough that got much worse (pneumonia)
Notes (120-145)
• Eddie was mad that his mother was blaming
herself…his father’s drunken fault
• His condition worsened from fair to serious.
• Eddie helped out at the pier to protect his father’s
job.
▫ Wanted to avoid the pier his whole life
▫ Ends up doing his father’s work
• Eddie just holds up his grease-stained fingertips
when he visits his father at the hospital.
▫ Why?
▫ Make him proud- that is what he wanted for Eddie
Notes (120-145)
• Eddie felt empty anger when he father died.
▫ Nothing heroic about his death
• Eddie’s mother was in a daze
▫
▫
▫
▫
Cooked for two
Talked to him like he was still there
Yelled for him to turn down the radio
Fluffed pillows on both sides of the bed
• Caused Eddie to quit driving a cab
▫ Moved into the building he grew up in
▫ Accepted a job as a maintenance man at Ruby Pier to keep an eye
on his mother
▫ Cursed his father for trapping him in this life and dying
Notes (120-145)
• Why is Eddie dark on his birthdays?
• Foreshadowing:
▫ “Eddie thinks about Marguerite. He always thinks
about Marguerite when Noel mentions the race
track” (p.131).
• Eddie got stuck
▫ Got used to his work at the pier- just never left
• Ruby knows something Eddie does not.
Notes (120-145)
• Mickey, in a drunken state, began to take sexual
advantage over Eddie’s mother
▫ Grabbing her, touching her, pushing her against the wall
▫ Eddie’s father comes home, sees this, and chases after
Mickey out of the apartment and into the rain.
• Mickey jumps into the ocean and Eddie’s father jumps in
after him
▫ Fighting in the ocean
▫ Ends up saving Mickey from drowning
▫ Goes into the ocean to fight Mickey, possibly kill BUT in the
end he couldn’t… he knew who Mickey was
▫ Mickey got his father a job, lent money when Eddie was
born= took old friendships seriously
Notes (120-145)
• “Things are not always what they seem.”
▫ Mickey got fired that day.
▫ He got really drunk… came looking for help
▫ Not an evil person- acted out of loneliness and
desperation
▫ Eddie’s father acted on impulse – first to kill, then
to save
▫ This is how Eddie’s father got sick… laying on the
beach for hours, too weak to move
▫ Died because of loyalty
Notes (120-145)
• Eddie’s father never spoke of that night again.
▫ He was ashamed.
▫ Stopped speaking entirely in the hospital
▫ Silence was his escape BUT thoughts still haunted
him
• In the hospital
▫ Fell into a coma
▫ One night, nurses found him hanging half way out
of the window calling for his family
Vocabulary (p. 147-end)
• Deformed: something that is deformed has the wrong shape, especially because it
has grown or developed wrongly
• Ambushed: a sudden attack on someone by people who have been hiding and
waiting for them, or the place where this happens
• Relentless: strict, cruel, or determined, without ever stopping
• Embankment: a wide wall of earth or stones built to stop water from flooding an
area, or to support a road or railway
• Embroidered: to decorate cloth by sewing a pattern, picture, or words on it with
colored threads
• Charred: something that is burned until black
• Engulf: to completely surround or cover something; feel something completely
Notes (p.147-end)
• Eddie has aged by the fourth person
▫ Coming close to the end of his five people
• Approaches all different wedding receptions
with different culture
▫ Celebrating love in various ways
• Eddie hates weddings
▫ Embarrassed
▫ Can’t do anything at them
▫ Would avoid them