Mitch Albom’s second novel tells the bittersweet tale of a man named Eddie, a maintenance person for an amusement park where he spent his whole life doing seemingly mundane things. Eddie feels that his repetitive days and routines were the “be all and end all” of his existence, and therefore saw himself and his life as a waste. When one of the amusement park rides threatens to kill a little girl, Eddie dived and saved her–sacrificing his life in the process. He then wakes up in heaven to find that his life and death on Earth is not really the end–in fact, it was only the beginning.

The first sentence of The Five People You Meet in Heaven grabs you by the neck, breathes into you and leaves you gasping and holding on until the novel’s very last word. It shows how nothing in life is an accident, how souls are interconnected, how lives–even those of strangers–intersect with yours. It takes you to a world where no one else quite imagined–a heaven that has many steps, a world where you get to “make sense of your yesterdays”–and what more of a heaven could you get than the opportunity to have peace, to understand why you lived the way you did, make amends, and learn to forgive?

Gripping, touching, and eloquent, the novel has gained plenty of praises and good reviews and has sold more than 8 million copies worldwide and is now the most successful hardcover first novel ever (via Albom.com).

“A powerful book” -Time Magazine
“Transcendent” -Atlanta Constitution
“A book with the genuine power to stir and comfort its readers” -The New York Times

On a more personal note: Simply put, I cried like a baby while reading the book. And thanks to Ronan, my secret Santa, who gave me the copy.

On an even more personal note: My heaven has changed. Now, it would be in a field in this old familiar place, where I used to spend my evenings with a certain dimpled boy, lying on the grass, talking about tomorrows, and waiting for stars to die.

One of the reasons why I like Christmas is because it comes barging in and makes its presence felt with a bang: Christmas carols are suddenly “in” again, and bright Christmas lights blink at me from some stranger’s house, each blink like a friendly little wave peeking from an inky black night.

Another year has gone by and I can’t believe I’ve been working for almost a couple of years now. It’s tiring to be an adult, and it’s pathetic that I still haven’t made that FULL transition from a kid to a full-pledged woman–hence, the frequent bouts of sickeningly existential Quarter Life Crises. It makes me feel old when I no longer receive gifts and moolah from fond aunts and uncles and ninongs and ninangs, instead I am now expected to give gifts and moolah to the, er, younger generation. And nothing makes me feel older than the fact that one of my cousins, whose diaper I used to change, is now big enough to carry me.

Years and years of failed attempts made me lack faith in resolutions, particularly the ones I made around the New Year. While there is nothing wrong with wanting to change and improve, the way that life is made in a circular manner–where everything is just a cycle–render resolutions, at least in my case, useless. And so instead of resolutions, I have created a list of goals, “baby steps” as we dubbed, that should serve as the star, or the light at the end of the tunnel, or whatever it is that people call them:
(more…)

Tell me, if your company’s Christmas party had an “MTV Red Carpet” theme and super raffle prizes (laptops and HDTV among others), and you have a beautiful venue and great food and everyone dressed to the nines, how could anybody fail to have fun?

Photo taken by Nan

(more…)