latest read - The Five People You Meet In Heaven

Wednesday 21st Nov 2007

The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom

I was skeptical about reading another Mitch Albom book since Tuesdays With Morrie and For One More Day left little effect on me. I don’t see why they have been raving about the author so much. With The Five People You Meet In Heaven, I can say that it’s the only book from Mitch Albom that I like so far. Maybe the others need another read through but I’ll have to leave that to some other day. Other books are calling out my name to be read.

While reading, I gathered some excerpts that I like from the book. Here they are:

[pg34] Heaven can be found in the most unlikely corners

[pg 35] 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.

[pg 49] Strangers are just family you have yet to come to know.

[pg101] All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair.

[pg126] Parents rarely let go of their children, so children let go of them. They move on. They move away. The moments that used to define them – a mother’s approval, a father’s nod – are covered by moments of their own accomplishments. It is not until much later, as the skin sags and the heart weakens, that children understand; their stories, and all their accomplishments, sit atop the stories of their mothers and fathers, stones upon stones, beneath the waters of their lives.

[pg155] People say they “find” love, as if it were an object hidden by a rock. But love takes many forms, and it is never the same for any man and woman. What people find is a certain love.

[pg164] Love, like rain, can nourish from above, drenching couples with a soaking joy. But sometimes, under the angry heat of life, love dries on the surface and must nourish from below, tending to its roots, keeping itself alive.

[pg173] “Lost love is still love, Eddie. It takes a different form, that’s all. You can’t see their smiles or bring them food or tousle their hair or move them around the 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.”

[Last words] …: that each affects the other and the other affect the next, and the world is full of stories, but the stories are all one.

Yes, indeed, we are all stories on this blue rock.

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Hun’s leaving for Melbourne again soon, for a month! Lonely days… Sighh… So we’ve got to make up for the impending lost of time together by meeting more than usual these coming days. Gosh! Feel like slumping down on my desk some days.

I think I should seriously plan to go over to Melbourne; make a vacation out of it. But what about work? Well, we’ll see how it goes.

Anyway, Tuesday 20^th Nov, rushed home after sorting out some stuff at work and of course, when you’re rushing, there’s always going to be a traffic jam. Naturally, right? Turns out Hun got stuck in a jam too. Dinner was at Luk Yu Tea House, Starhill at my request since I adore the Dim Sum there. The only place I’ll go for Dim Sum. By the time we finished, it was late. So I didn’t get to walk around.

Wednesday 21^st Nov, what a mad day at work; rushing here and there and preparing for the ns2 workshop that I’m suppose to conduct for one session tomorrow which reminds me that I need to look at the slides again before retiring tonight. I mean, even if you don’t really like what you’re doing, don’t make a fool out of yourself, right?

Today, I feel like shooting some pool. So, it’s The Social, Bangsar. Surprisingly their nasi goreng is quite yummy....
[upon returning from dinner] Hmm... bizarre in a surreal kind of way... You know how an incident can make or break someone's perspective of someone else, well, this is definitely one of them.

Thursday 22nd Nov 2007

1. Hun says that I'm in a bubble and that I have floated away to a point that I am taking things for granted. He says it's because I'm absolutely pampered and spoilt beyond redemption! Gosh! Is there such a thing? Am I??
But to be truthful, he's got a point. I hope it will not be something bad that will bring me back down to earth. Floating around feels kinda good. But the drawback is that sometimes you lose perspective of real life and it's making me really scatter-brained!
Keyword for today: perspective!

2. You know you are not at peace when you wake up in the morning and still feel tired.

3. Workshop was ok although at some moments, I myself was not sure what I was saying. Ha ha ha... Since participants are novices, so it was mostly just logical frying (goreng!). Ha ha ha...