Movie Night At Home

A couple of days ago I watched a rather nice movie, a television film adaption of Mitch Albom's novel The Five People You Meet in Heaven. Eddie (played by Jon Voigt) is a maintenance man at an amusement park, and we meet him there on his 83rd birthday, and he's also killed there that day, in an attempt to save a little girl who's sitting under a falling ride. When he dies he goes to heaven, and there he meets five people who all have been significant in his life, whether he was aware of it or not. The point is that he has something important to learn from each of them in order to understand the purpose of his own life. I'm not going to say that much more about the film, but it got me thinking. If it was me, which five people would I meet in heaven? Well, if it was like in the film I wouldn't be able to guess them all now, 'cause there are people and incidents that'll have an impact on your life even if you don't realize it at the time.

There are a few I want to meet, and who I feel have been very special to me, but that's obviously not how it works (according to the novel/film). Still, I wouldn't be surprised if I met Ellen there. She's not family, although to me she's always been like an extra grandmother. I tell you a little bit about her.

After the WWII times were tough for the people of Germany, and many had to leave the country to make a living. Some came to Sweden, and in 1950 my father got acquainted with Ellen and the others. They only stayed for two years, but Ellen (and the man she married later) picked up on the language, and to this day she still speaks Swedish. After they moved back they kept contact with my father, and he traveled down to Germany on several occasions. Later with his family, and I remember going there almost every year when I was a kid. Ellen and her husband called me "little princess" and spoiled me like one too, but I have also learned some very important things from them. I worked at their inn one summer, serving beer and schnapps to the locals, and I still have vivid memories of the time. Very educational, it was.

But time goes and things change, and as an adult haven't seen them too often. We've talked about it so many times, me and my father, to go see her (she's a widow now) together, but when I go to Sweden for holidays I always seem to run out of time. This year though, I decided to do things a little differently, so off we went - my father, me and my daughter. 14 years since the last time I met Ellen! That's too long...

At first she didn't look the same, even a feisty woman like her can't hide the fact she's 83, but it didn't take long to recognize her as she's always been. She told us she got a compliment that morning, and she'd answered: "Well, of course, I have to look nice, my old lover is coming to visit me!" Na, that's something isn't it? You see, Ellen and my father used to date, back then in the fifties. This I didn't know until I was grown up, but it sort of fits with everything else I believe in. Relations and perceptions like this have shaped me in a way I can understand better now. Nothing is black and white, there are all kinds of shades in between. And that friendship is the base of any lasting relationship.

In the mentioned film one of the points is that everything is connected, and that's what I always been saying too. This quote from the novel itself: "But all endings are also beginnings. We just don't know it at the time...", I also like. Without any particular reference besides, just in general.

I have the film, you're welcome to borrow it!