You Aren't Going to Believe This One

You know I am an insomniac.  I don't sleep much at all.  So last night about 1:30 AM I got to flipping channels and got interested in some movie that was just starting.  It was called The Five People You Meet in Heaven. 

I know my friends are picking up their teeth from the floor 'bout now! 

It was a movie with a very interesting concept.  When you die, you will meet 5 people who influenced your life the most.  They are there to teach you something about yourself or your life. 

The good thing about this movie is that it wasn't the standard answers you get when you ask the question, "What person living or dead would you want to meet?"  Jesus Christ.  I know there are some really interesting people who have lived, and I would think that if not for severe religious upbringing and the need to prove to oneself that Jesus really did exist, most people would choose someone vastly more interesting or important.  Like the person who invented fire or indoor plumbing. Or Jonas Salk who invented the polio vaccine.  Or Socrates.  Or Elias Howe.  Or the guy who stood beside my grandfather when he was 15 years old and enlisting in the US Marines to fight in WWI.

Anyway, back to the movie.  I really encourage you to get that movie. If you want to get it then don't read the 5 people he sees, but here is a brief description of those he meets.

Th first person was the Blue Man from the local Freak Show at the Carnival.  He taught him that people are people, they may look different but they still are human beings.  The second was his Captain from the war who taught him that the ultimate love for another human is the ability to sacrifice something for them.  His Capt was killed when he stepped on a land mine allowing the others to escape and live.

The third person was the woman who owned the Carnival where his father worked.  His father beat him, his sister and his mother and was a drunk.  He hated his father.  He had thought his father died of complication of a drunken spree, but really his father died of pneumonia after saving a guy he went out to kill because he had made advances on his wife.  He needed to forgive his father.

The fourth person was his wife who died of a brain tumor and told him that she knew he loved her but while she was alive and after and their lives had been wonderful for that.

And the fifth was the little girl in Japan who was in the hut the hut in Japan he had torched during the war.  She forgave him. 

It was a wonderful movie.  And I can't stop thinking about the meaning it was meant to convey.  That you impact other lives, and they impact yours.  And you may not even realize it.  It does matter, so do the right thing. 



glen