The Five People You Meet in Heaven

I am reading the book, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, by one of my favourite authors, Mitch Albom. The book is about life, death and stories.

Stories told, stories lost, stories misunderstood, the stories in between and the stories that only begin after another one ends.

Below, are a few quotes from the book that I’d like to share…

” It might seem strange to start a story at an ending. But all endings are also beginnings. We just don’t know it at the time”.

I love that quote because it relates so much to the experiences in our lives. How many times have you experienced something terrible, a loss that you thought was the end of the world. You lose a job, you breakup from a relationship, you miss an opportunity….only to find that later on, that if that door didn’t close, another one wouldn’t have happened.

“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 water.”

I have struggled to find peace with my father and be content with the dynamic of our relationship. I still do, to this day and wonder if I’ll ever understand how and why he is the way he is. But it’s true, nomatter how much you please them, or disappoint them or even go weeks ignoring them, your parents will never let you go. And then one day, when you are no longer a child, and realize that your relationship is a choice, you either try to accomodate their ways, or you give up.

~ by amyfabulous on August 10, 2008.