 Who are the most important people you meet in your life? Your parents? Your relatives? Your friends? Your teachers?

 The start of the story is the end of Eddie’s life.

serious injury  He is an 83-year-old man. Because of a serious injury of his leg in the war when he was young, he can’t walk properly.

big dream different  He used to have big dream- leaving the Ruby Pier where he grows up; having a life that is different from his father’s.

maintenance worker  Unluckily, he can’t leave the pier because of his injury. He stays at it as a maintenance worker to repair the rides.

meaningdreamssurprise loneliness  With no meaning, no dreams, no surprise, but only loneliness, Eddie suddenly dies because he tries to save a girl from a falling ride.

 Do you think Eddie’s life is a very normal story, just like everyone?  However, Eddie’s story doesn’t end…

 Eddie then wakes up at Ruby Pier.

heavenmeet five people  Suddenly, Eddie finds a man whose skin is blue in color. This man explains to Eddie that he is in heaven, and that he will meet five people along his journey, teaching him valuable life lessons.

 The Blue man told him, “Each of us was in your life for a reason, though you may not have known the reason at that time.”

intertwined  His life is intertwined with Eddie’s when Eddie runs to the streets to catch his ball. Eddie has never known that his action caused the blue man’s death, until Eddie gets into the heaven.

hurt Eddie’s leg  The next person Eddie meets is his Captain during the Second World War. The captain hurt Eddie’s leg to prevent him from going into the burning house.

 Eddie’s leg was hurt because of the captain’s shoot, but this saves his life.

 Ruby is the third one Eddie meets. She is also known as Ruby Pier’s namesake. She tells Eddie a story.

fireworks burnt  Ruby’s husband bought fireworks, but a few careless men set them off, and almost burnt the pier to the ground. Trying to stop the fire, her husband was greatly injured.

only happiness  The fourth person Eddie meets in heaven is Marguerite, who was Eddie’s wife. She was also the only happiness in Eddie’s life.

 Marguerite is the only one being with Eddie, making Eddie happy. Yet, she dies at the age of 47.

burning fort  Tala was the last one. She was a little girl whom Eddie saw in the burning fort during the war.

killed  Although Eddie thought that it was not true in most of his life time, he finally finds out in heaven that he really killed her in the fire.

nothing specialregretshate puzzle  Eddie is a normal person, like you and me: nothing special, with some regrets, hate and puzzle throughout our life.

philosophies  The five people Eddie meets in the heaven mean five philosophies in our life.

no random acts  Eddie learns from the blue man that there are no random acts in life.  Life is never meaningless.

gain  The Captain teaches Eddie that ‘if you lose something; you often gain another thing in return.’

forgive and forget past  Ruby teaches Eddie to “forgive and forget”, telling him to forgive his father for the wrongdoings and to forget about everything his father has done, because it is the past.

 Marguerite teaches him the lesson that love is not lost with death.

target  Tala teaches Eddie that his life did have a target which was to keep children safe at the pier.

 Reading is also never meaningless!

 在天堂遇見的五個人