56 pages • 1 hour read
Mitch AlbomThe Next Person You Meet in Heaven
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 21-25Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 21 Summary: “The Next Eternity”
In the next heaven, Annie finds herself emerging from the depths of the water at the bottom of the waterfall. She comes out onto a beach wearing the same clothing she had on the day of the accident at Ruby Pier. The pier and amusement park appear before her, along with a stone marker for Eddie, the man who saved her life and sacrificed his own. Moments later, Eddie himself appears.
Chapter 22 Summary: “Annie Makes a Mistake”
At age 25, Annie has become a nurse and is working with patients. She finds the position a natural fit, as she enjoys feeling needed and providing compassion to those whom she cares for. Annie makes friends with a coworker and confesses that she was in an accident that continues to haunt her. She cannot remember what happened but knows that someone was killed in the process. Annie’s friend encourages her to talk to a therapist, but Annie worries about what may be uncovered if she does.
Chapter 23 Summary: “The Fourth Person Annie Meets in Heaven”
Eddie is a short and stout old man with an edge to his personality and speech, but also an approachable friendliness. In meeting Annie, he laments how young she is to have died, and Annie explains what happened to her and Paulo. Eddie remembers how, when he died, he asked every person he met if the girl he tried to save was okay—just as Annie has done about Paulo. Eddie reaches out to touch Annie’s hand, and in doing so Annie feels as if she is being cradled by a great sense of safety.
Annie sees flashes of Eddie’s entire life, from his difficult childhood in the 1920s, to his reluctant acceptance of his role as a maintenance worker at Ruby Pier, and the loss of his wife, Marguerite. Annie feels safe confiding in Eddie and admits that she feels as if her entire life has been nothing but one mistake after another. Eddie admits he felt the same, but upon meeting his five people, his mind changed about everything.
Chapter 24 Summary: “Annie Makes a Mistake”
On the eighth anniversary of Laurence’s death, Annie goes to visit the grave marker and pray for him. Afterward, she has a double shift at the hospital with little extra help. The night is stressful, and Annie is both exhausted and agitated. When she goes to administer medicine to a patient, another starts screaming at her to change his pillow. Annie becomes flustered and accidentally administers the medicine into the patient’s feeding tube, which may have killed him had she not realized moments later. Annie takes two weeks off work, and when she returns, she vows to put her full focus on her patients.
Chapter 25 Summary: “The Fourth Lesson”
The world around Annie and Eddie transforms to the Philippines during World War II. Annie instantly remembers seeing it when she saw Eddie’s memories before. Eddie explains that when he and the rest of his cohort finally escaped imprisonment, they burned the entire village, and at the time considered it to be an act of freedom and revenge. However, a girl named Tala burned alive inside one of the huts. Eddie did not know it until he met her in the afterlife: “She’s in heaven […] because of me” (175). The girl emerges then and puts her hand in Eddie’s. Eddie tells Annie that when he met Tala, she explained to him that his purpose at Ruby Pier was to keep the children there safe, in a way to make up for how he had not saved her. When Tala told Eddie that the little girl he died trying to save survived, it resolved the conflict within him.
Eddie tells Annie that it is finally time for her to see what happened on the day of the accident. Annie reluctantly watches herself as she attempts to hide: her younger self notices the commotion around the free fall ride as one of the carts begins to tilt dangerously. Panicking at the sight of the fleeing crowd, Young Annie seeks safety underneath the platform of the falling ride instead. She sees Eddie run toward her and push her off, to be crushed moments later. Immediately after, flying debris chops through her wrist.
In the afterlife, Annie feels an immense guilt for Eddie’s sacrifice. Eddie tells her that it was necessary for him to die saving her in order to absolve himself for Tala’s death: “I needed to save you. It let me make up for the life I took” (181). He tells Annie, “[T]here are no mistakes” (182). Because of what he’d done in the past, Eddie found meaning in keeping kids safe. Next, he hands Annie her son, Laurence, and as Annie holds him, she weeps with relief. The moment is brief, however, as she is soon whisked away to meet her final person.
On Earth, Tolbert arrives at the hospital and finds his assistant alive. He starts yelling at him but is soon interrupted by an officer who needs a statement from Tolbert.
Chapters 21-25 Analysis
In the moments leading up to the novel’s climax, Annie meets Eddie, the protagonist of the series’ first novel and the man who saved Annie’s life at Ruby Pier. Annie spent her life not knowing Eddie; she was aware that someone died on the day of the accident, but she did not know who. Still, when she first sees Eddie at her wedding in the story’s exposition, she is vaguely aware that she has met him before. That foreshadowing resolves here, when they are finally able to communicate as adults.
When Annie realizes who Eddie is, she tries to apologize for being the reason his life ended. Eddie, however, insists that The Purpose of People, Suffering, and Life is to act in ways that make the world better, brighter, safer, and happier. Eddie spent his life believing that his life was a waste, and that it lacked meaning. When he died, he learned that his time as a maintenance worker at Ruby Pier was a way to absolve an evil act that he did not even know he had committed. Only after Eddie meets Tala in the afterlife can he put the rest of his life into context. Although what happened to Tala was tragic, Eddie was an extremely skilled maintenance worker, and many children were kept safe thanks to his attention to detail. Eddie explains that “the wrongs we do open doors to do right” (181), helping Annie realize that her “mistakes” were not mistakes, only choices. When Annie tells Eddie that she “ruin[s] everything. Even the good things” and blames herself for much of what happened in her life (168), Eddie tells her that he understands how she feels, but that in life there are no mistakes. This builds on the lessons Annie learned from Sameer, Cleo, and Lorraine.
Eddie’s final sacrifice, saving Annie, was an exchange for the life he took, and for this reason he is grateful for Annie: “I needed to save you. It let me make up for the life I took” (181). In a moment that demonstrates the depth of Interwoven Human Connection, Eddie hands Annie her son, Laurence. Annie feels a sense of relief knowing that Laurence is safe in heaven with someone whose life’s work was defined by keeping children safe. When Eddie shows Annie the events of the accident, Annie reaches a level of peace she never felt before. She no longer needs to wonder about what she’s blocked out. She no longer needs to feel unnecessary guilt for the innocent choices of her childhood self, and Eddie is the only person who could have helped Annie come to this realization. Annie demonstrates her growth when she is finally able to feel grateful for the injury that changed her life and for the man who sacrificed himself to give her a future, rather than letting herself be overcome by guilt.
Eddie’s presence in Annie’s afterlife represents Death as a Part of the Life Cycle, especially because of his role as the series’ first protagonist. Eddie went through the same journey that Annie is currently on, which, in addition to his major role in her life, makes him uniquely qualified to impart wisdom unto her. The chapters involving Eddie show that he has not disappeared simply because he died; his influence lingers, continuing to affect the living, while he himself has simply transitioned into another role. This is a significant contrast to Annie, whose time on Earth is not yet finished.
Related Titles
By Mitch Albom
