Day 13: Fiction Book

The whole story centers around Eddie, an 83 year old maintenance man at a small pier amusement park where he has worked and lived around most of his life. On his 83rd birthday Eddie is involved in a freak accident where one of his carts break free from a ride and fall perilously down to crush him as he with the last of his strength pushes a young child out of harm's way.

Eddie goes to this "heaven" and is confronted with deliberating his whole life up until his death. While he is on this after-death journey he has to meet with the five people that significantly affected his life whether he realized it at the time or not. Every person to the last brings Eddie back memories that show him great change in his life and how that one person shaped that change for the better or for the worst.

The book teaches us that no matter how small and insignificant, we as people, think we are, we somehow always play a significant role in other people's lives. Whether it is a chance meeting that is simply forgotten once it is over or a life long relationship that had time to grow and change over the years. We might think we are small human beings on the outside but on the inside there is always something greater then we can ever realize.

I want to believe myself that even though I am a small human being on this big planet that I have at least in some way changed one person's life for the better, no matter what it was (big or small) and no matter if I had realized it or not realized it at the time. This book gives me hope that I just might have or will before my own departing flight from this seemingly temporary destination.