The five people you meet in heaven

Lesson 1:

"...there are no random acts...deep down, all lives intersect...One withers, another grows."

Lesson 2:

"...Sacrifice is a part of life. It's supposed to be. It's not something to regret. It's something to aspire to...Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you're not really losing it. You're just passing it on to someone else."

Lesson 3:

"...Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from inside. We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harm we do, we do to ourselves...no one is born with anger."

Lesson 4:

"...Lost love is still love...it takes a different form, that's all...Memory becomes your partner. You nurture it. You hold it. You dance with it...Life has to end, love doesn't."

Lesson 5:

Our existence, where we are, what we do, all mean something to people around us.

(I feel that the author purposely have a child as the fifth person so that readers can interpret the fifth lesson for themselves.)

Quotes:

"...Strangers are just family you have yet to cme to know."

(Indeed, sometimes strangers can be more open, more honest, more caring to you than the supposedly "friends". This is something i feel deeply in my career as a financial consultant.)

"...The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone."

(If that is the case, I must have wasted a hell lot of time...)

"...All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absrobs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair."

(This was a topic which drew myself and shijie closer. I won't go as far as to say that all parents damage their children, but the fact is to expect every parent to be as self-sacrificing and as caring as many want us to believe, is simply irrealistic. Parents are humans after all.)

"Love, like rain, can nourish from above, drenching couples with a soaking joy. But sometims, underthe angry heat of life, love dries on the surface and must nourish from below, tending to its roots, keeping itself alive."

(A really adequate description of love. Something for every couple to ponder as the challenge is always there to keep the flame burning after passion inevitably dies out.)