As Albom readily acknowledges, it may seem rather strange to begin a book with an ending. The ending in question is the death of Eddie, who dies on his eighty-third birthday after trying to save a young girl from a runaway cart on a fairground ride.

But as Albom also acknowledges, “[A]ll endings are also beginnings.” What he means by this is simply that when something ends, it is also the beginning of something else.

Numerous examples of this phenomenon can be seen throughout our lives. When you graduate from high school, for instance, that's the end of your schooldays. But it's also the beginning of the next stage of your life, the one that involves going to college or getting a job, or maybe even joining the armed forces. In the words of T. S. Eliot, “In the end is my beginning.”

In the case of Eddie, his end, the ultimate end, is the beginning of a journey to heaven, where he will meet five people who will explain his life to him. Although Eddie may have left this mortal coil behind, his spirit still lives on, and it is ready to embark upon new beginnings as it soars upwards to heaven.