The River and Understanding: On Reading The Five People You Meet in Heaven

River, I’ve returned. This is where I learned
To love your waters—memorized the words, “drowning,” “death,”
And “life.”
Benjamín Alire Sáenz, “No sabe el río que se llama río”


Recently, friends invited my wife and me to spend a weekend at a serene retreat next to the Río Zaratí, on the outskirts of the city of Penonomé. This privately-owned paradise has an open-walled shelter located on a slight hill next to the river bank, at a spot where the waters form a gentle, swirling pool, perfect for swimming. It was in this shaded area, resting in a hammock and enjoying a steady, cool breeze, that I read Mitch Albom’s The Five People You Meet in Heaven.

As a reader, I’m attracted to books that deal with spiritual awakenings—just as long as I don’t feel the narrative is preaching to me. And as a novelist for whom spirituality is an important theme, I’m well aware of the danger of being overly-sentimental while relating a character’s quest to discover that which is holy. In writing about the mystical element of the human soul, avoiding bathos—as literary scholars refer to excessive sentimentalism—is a difficult task.

Mitch Albom’s The Five People You Meet in Heaven explores the pivotal spiritual question of what happens in the afterlife lucidly, without once becoming maudlin. In Albom’s brief, fast-paced, and intriguing novel—he puts his experience as a former award-winning sportswriter to good use—the reader witnesses, as if he or she had front row seats, the central character’s journey. At the moment of Eddie’s death, when he is in his mid-eighties, he has lived his entire life believing that his existence had been a drab, ordinary affair, without glamour or consequence.

In Albom’s fictional construct, the initial stages of the afterlife consist of five encounters with persons with whom the recently-deceased was connected, sometimes without knowing. Because of the lofty drama of these reunions, what is likely to go unnoticed is the vital importance of their location—the locus being almost as significant as the identities of the people the central protagonist meets. In The Five People You Meet in Heaven, whether the encounters take place in an amusement park, a mountain diner, or a round room of many doors whose exits always lead to weddings from highly diverse cultures, the setting situates the readers at a vantage point above the symbolic realm of Eddie’s existence that helps bestow his meetings with multiple layers of meaning.

The final encounter—the one that finally makes Eddie’s raison d'être perfectly clear—takes place, fittingly, next to a river. At once I was reminded of Herman Hesse’s Siddartha, where the central character’s awakening, the moment he discovers the meaning that he has long been seeking, takes place as he gazes into a river and listens attentively to its flow.

The river—a universal symbol of life, time, change, movement, mystery, wisdom, and connectedness—facilitates Eddie’s understanding of his purpose, and this leads him to inner peace. It’s then, when one reads Albom’s vivid description of the role his character played in the lives of thousands and the narrative clearly shows how all of humankind is intimately linked, that The Five People You Meet in Heaven becomes profoundly touching.

Upon finishing the book, I closed the cover, stroked it for a while, remained still in the hammock and, in a fleeting imitation of Siddartha, spent the remainder of the afternoon trying to learn to listen to the river.

Filling the Gaps with Flair: On Henry VIII and The Tudors

History, a distillation of rumors.
Thomas Carlyle


In all honesty, I’ve never paid much attention to England’s King Henry VIII. The only thing I believed worth knowing about this historical personage was that he married six times, had a couple of his wives beheaded, and was responsible for dealing the Catholic Church a severe blow by creating the Church of England and appointing himself its head.

But my general indifference toward the legendary monarch changed when my sister introduced me to The Tudors—a Showtime television series.

From the onset of the program, the supporting characters—most of who played prominent roles in England’s history—mesmerized me. And perhaps what drew me toward them was their attraction to Henry VIII’s power, which is impossible for me to comprehend, given the King’s custom of beheading sycophants who had outlived their usefulness. It's supremely interesting to watch these bitter—and thus outright creepy—flatterers and parasites (Thomas More, of course, being the notable exception) try to fulfill every one of the monarch’s wishes in the hope of obtaining his favor. And their misplaced devotion to the creator of the modern English state makes this program all the more captivating as their existences often come to an end at the sharp edge of the axe.

Intrigued about whether the incidents portrayed in The Tudors adhere to historical truths, I was compelled to learn more about the notorious English king. To do so, I read Roberta Strauss Feuerlicht’s The Life and World of Henry VIII, a helpful primer on the sovereign’s life, and I examined various websites devoted to his legacy.

Through these readings I discovered that although the television drama greatly compresses time (for instance, Mary Boleyn, Anne Boleyn’s older sister, is seen as only a passing fancy for Henry VIII when, in reality, she was the ruler’s mistress for five years), the storyline is quite faithful to events as they’re recorded in history books.

Nevertheless, it is in the gaps between what historians know to be true, the wide margins of uncertainty where rumors almost acquire the weight of facts, that the scriptwriters find the sordid and shocking scenarios that tantalize viewers.

A case in point: most historians maintain that the overly-ambitious and worldly Cardinal Thomas Wolsey died of natural causes in a Leicester Abbey bed. Reportedly, the last words he uttered were: “If I had served my God as diligently as I did my king, He would have not have given me over in my grey hairs.” The Catholic Church has accepted this statement as indication of Wolsey’s full repentance, and this earned him sainthood.

In The Tudors, however, the scriptwriters opted to follow the trail of rumor with regard to the Cardinal’s death. In the series, the power-hungry cleric—masterfully played by Sam Neill—who had been summoned to London on charges of treason and was therefore destined to be beheaded, pronounces the phrase to his confessor; and once he’s left alone he proceeds to take his own life in the most dreadful of manners. And it is during moments such as this, when the writers exploit the gap between historical certitudes, that the drama reaches beyond the screen to clinch its viewers.

Since watching the first season of The Tudors, I’ve developed a great interest in Henry VIII’s reign—particularly with regard to the intrigues and schemes hatched within his court. And since my newfound curiosity has yet to be satiated, I shall continue reading about this fascinating English ruler because, as I now know, his life is, indeed, worthy of study and wondrous retelling.

On Courtesy and Smiles

A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love.
Saint Basil


In our era, courtesy is the object of constant eulogies. I hear these in private conversations as well as in the media. Kindness and gentility have died, people keep saying.

I don’t believe that.

Nevertheless, there are occasions, and often, I admit, when I’d welcome the smallest gesture that indicates that a person, if only momentarily, has placed the well-being of another before his or her own.

I especially wish this when I’m caught in one of Panama City’s notorious traffic jams. Whenever my wife—who is usually behind the steering wheel—stops to allow another vehicle to enter the flow of traffic, if the recipient of her thoughtfulness fails to acknowledge the gift, half irritated and half in jest, I exclaim, “Hey, where’s our wave?” (Credit for that line, of course, goes to Seinfeld.)

On the rare occasions when drivers signal their gratitude, my wife and I wave back, large grins on our faces.

And that’s something I’ve noticed, courteous acts usually trigger big smiles.

And a recent incident confirmed, for me at least, that chivalry lives on—this in spite of its much proclaimed demise.

Pedestrians in Central America—in comparison to the United States—have few rights. For instance, when one crosses the street without the benefit of a traffic light (and sometimes a green signal is no guarantee of safe passage) one has to be prepared to dodge vehicles: the vast majority of drivers seem intent on making it to their destinations with as few stops as possible. Because of this, crossing a street in Panama City is, in my eyes, akin to playing Frogger—with the frog being the pedestrian. (Frogger, for those who may not know, is one of the earliest video games; in it, the player has to get a frog across a five-lane highway without the poor amphibian getting squished.)

As I write this I realize that now the idea of crossing a street in Panama City must seem terrifying to the outsider, but the truth is that this enterprise can quite interesting , and it’s certainly one that brings on an adrenaline rush.

A couple of weeks ago, I was crossing a heavily-trafficked, one-way, two-lane street near my home when, after waiting a couple of minutes for the steady flow of vehicles to subside, I spotted an upcoming gap. I crossed the lane closest to me and stopped midway through the street to allow the last vehicle of the herd—a motorcycle—to pass. Soon, though, I became concerned when the driver started to slow down. I waved my arm across my waist a few times, inviting him to pass. Instead, right before reaching me, the motorcycle came to a complete halt.

Startled, I looked straight at the motorcyclist who, fortunately for me, wore a helmet without a visor. The handsome young man broke into a friendly grin and said, “Por favor, señor, pase usted.”

The driver’s kind gesture so startled me that I immediately started to chuckle as I thanked him—and waved, of course—as I finished crossing the street. As I continued on my errand, I became caught in the recollection of the driver’s selflessness—and the warmth of his humanity accompanied me along the way.

I had advanced a couple of blocks before I noticed people staring at me, and then smiling as we crossed paths. It was at that point that the ripple effect of the young man’s act brought me back to a luminous reality—throughout that stretch of my journey, unknowingly, I had been smiling, to myself, touched by the radiance of another person’s kindness.

A Precious Time Capsule

For passion, be it observed, brings insight with it; it can give a sort of intelligence to simpletons, fools, and idiots, especially during youth.
Honore de Balzac

The Beatles will go on and on.
George Harrison

Recently, I splurged and purchased the documentary The Beatles Anthology—a five dvd set. It was my Christmas gift to myself.

I was ten years old when, like most people in the United States on that momentous Sunday, I sat in front of the family television set, enthralled with the Beatles’ performance on the Ed Sullivan Show. It was the event that unleashed Beatlemania upon the world.

A year after this critical marker in the history of music, my family moved to Nicaragua; and although Nicaraguan radio stations played the Beatles, like everywhere else, the English group’s creations didn’t saturate the airwaves as they did in the States—not even close.

During my Nicaraguan adolescence I missed out on the madness of the latter half of the US sixties. Instead, I grew up in a nation where events occurred at a much slower pace—although Nicaragua was gradually edging toward profound changes as well. But the Beatles weren’t part of our national reality and, as a result, I missed out on most of their work as it was being released. For instance, “I Am the Walrus,” my favorite Beatles’s song, came out when I was fourteen, but I only heard it for the first time when I was nineteen.

Thus, as a result of being tucked away in Central America, I didn’t really grow up a true Beatles’s fan. In fact, Nicaraguans were so far removed from the rock music scene that Mick Jagger, who married into the culture and traveled to Nicaragua to meet Bianca’s family, once stated in an interview that he loved the country because the entire time he strolled through the streets of pre-earthquake Managua only one young music fan recognized him. The anonymity, he said, made him feel like a normal person.

But Jagger’s lack of celebrity also showed how far removed we were from the cutting edge musical developments of the rest of the world.

Oddly, it was the movie Woodstock—an event that didn’t include the Beatles—that helped break the musical barrier. The film captured the imagination of Nicaragua’s youth and made us demand more rock music over the airwaves. A couple of radio stations complied and soon we were being introduced to wide range of new music ranging from Chicago and Cat Stevens on through Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, and Emerson, Lake and Palmer. It was during this exhilarating and intense exposure to English-language music that I became a rabid rock fan.

But by then, however, the Beatles had become fossilized in my mind, still stuck in early 1964, the year my family left the States, and forever singing “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and “She Loves You.” And what helped keep the group locked in this time was that in spite of the tidal wave of rock music emerging over the airwaves in the early 70s, all I kept hearing of the Beatles were their singles which, although pleasant, failed to show the true genius and scope of their oeuvre.

It wasn’t until a couple of years after the Beatles had broken up—when I was back in the States attending college—that at the urging of friends, who loaned me their albums, I started to listen to the Beatles intently. And although the halcyon days of the band had certainly passed, I became a huge fan; not only did I devour all of their music, but I read virtually every book written about them.

What I enjoy most about The Beatles Anthology is that the documentary brings the legacy of the four British musicians vividly back to life as the filmmakers allow the members of the group to tell their story in their own words: from their Liverpool beginnings to their disintegration after the recording of “Abby Road.”

And recently, shortly after Christmas, over a period of a week, I was once again sitting in front of the television, mesmerized by the Beatles. Not only did the documentary help fill some of the gaps of the heady years that I missed while living in Nicaragua, sheltered from the storm of Beatlemania, but at times it allowed me to look into the group’s creative process. What’s more, it was a joy to listen to Paul, George (who was still alive at the time of production), and Ringo reminisce about one of the most extraordinary tales in the annals of entertainment.

Although at the end of the documentary I was sad to say goodbye, I soon found consolation in knowing that by owing this collection, what George Harrison once said about the group has now become tangibly true: for fans, like me, “The Beatles will go on and on.”