Free The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom

the animal bones and the broken cart and the smoldering remains of the village. Eddie realized this was the Captain's burial ground. No funeral. No coffin. Just his shattered skeleton and the muddy earth.
    "You've been waiting here all this time?" Eddie whispered.
    "Time," the Captain said, "is not what you think." He sat down next to Eddie. "Dying? Not the end of everything. We think it is. But what happens on earth is only the beginning."
    Eddie looked lost.
    "I figure it's like in the Bible, the Adam and Eve deal?" the Captain said. "Adam's first night on earth? When he lays down to sleep? He thinks it's all over, right? He doesn't know what sleep is. His eyes are closing and he thinks he's leaving this world, right?

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    "Only he isn't. He wakes up the next morning and he has a fresh new world to work with, but he has something else, too. He has his yesterday."
    The Captain grinned. "The way I see it, that's what we're getting here, soldier. That's what heaven is. You get to make sense of your yesterdays."
    He took out his plastic cigarette pack and tapped it with his finger.
    "You followin' this? I was never all that hot at teaching."
    Eddie watched the Captain closely. He had always thought of him as so much older. But now, with some of the coal ash rubbed from his face, Eddie noticed the scant lines on his skin and the full head of dark hair.
    He must have only been in his 30s.
    "You been here since you died," Eddie said, "but that's twice as long as you lived."
    The Captain nodded.
    "I've been waitin' for you."
    Eddie looked down.
    "That's what the Blue Man said."
    "Well, he was too. He was part of your life, part of why you lived and how you lived, part of the story you needed to know, but he told you and he's beyond here now, and in a short bit, I'm gonna be as well. So listen up. Because here's what you need to know from me." Eddie felt his back straighten.

    S ACRIFICE," THE CAPTAIN said. "You made one. I made one. We all make them. But you were angry over yours. You kept thinking about what you lost.
    "You didn't get it. Sacrifice is a part of life. It's supposed to be. It's not something to regret. It's something to aspire to. Little sacrifices. Big sacrifices. A mother works so her son can go to school. A daughter moves home to take care of her sick father.
    "A man goes to war. . . ."
    He stopped for a moment and looked off into the cloudy gray sky.
    "Rabozzo didn't die for nothing, you know. He sacrificed for his country, and his family knew it, and his kid brother went on to be a good soldier and a great man because he was inspired by it.

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    "I didn't die for nothing, either. That night, we might have all driven over that land mine. Then the four of us would have been gone."
    Eddie shook his head. "But you . . ." He lowered his voice. "You lost your life."
    The Captain smacked his tongue on his teeth.
    "That's the thing. Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you're not really losing it. You're just passing it on to someone else."
    The Captain walked over to the helmet, rifle, and dog tags, the symbolic grave, still stuck in the ground. He placed the helmet and tags under one arm, then plucked the rifle from the mud and threw it like a javelin. It never landed. Just soared into the sky and disappeared. The Captain turned.

"I shot you, all right," he said, "and you lost something, but you gained something as well. You just don't know it yet. I gained something, too."
    "What?"
    "I got to keep my promise. I didn't leave you behind."
    He held out his palm.
    "Forgive me about the leg?"
    Eddie thought for a moment. He thought about the bitterness after his wounding, his anger at all he had given up. Then he thought of what the Captain had given up and he felt ashamed. He offered his hand. The Captain gripped it tightly.
    "That's what I've been waiting for."
    Suddenly, the thick vines dropped off the banyan branches and melted with a hiss into the ground. New, healthy branches emerged in a yawning