In heaven, Ruby tells Eddie the true story of how his father died saving Mickey, and teaches him the lesson of forgiveness.
Ruby asks Eddie to learn this lesson from her story: Holding onto anger is poisonous. You may think anger will act as a weapon toward others, but it only hurts yourself. Ruby touches his hand and says, “You need to forgive your father.”
Eddie never knew exactly how his father died and he never suspected that he risked his life for the loyalty of his friendship. Ruby allowed Eddie to see this and she teaches him to let go of anger and forgive his father.
Ruby saw all of this because her husband, Emile, was in the hospital bed right next to Eddie's father. Eddie's third lesson is to let go of anger and forgive his father. He finds himself back in the diner where he saw his father. He tells him that he forgives him by saying "it's fixed" (144).
Eddie never met Ruby during his life, as she was much older and they weren't directly related, but the amusement park where Eddie works all his life, Ruby Pier, was built for Ruby by her husband. Ruby feels connected to Eddie, as she was present in the shared hospital room when Eddie's father died.
Ruby Pier is the amusement park on the ocean where Eddie works in maintenance for most of his life. A place of both great celebration and great pain for Eddie and others, the park represents the variety of experience in Eddie's life.
Eddie spends his last years missing Marguerite and regretting that he never left Ruby Pier to make a life for himself elsewhere. He believes that his life was meaningless. In heaven, the last person Eddie meets is a little girl named Tala.
Eddie's First Lesson
This is the first of The Five People You Meet in Heaven lessons. The Blue Man smiles and reassures him that he is only here to learn. He says that all five people that Eddie will come across in heaven have one lesson to teach him: that all lives are connected and nothing is completely random.
Ruby : Eddie, anger is a poison. It eats us inside. We think when we hate someone we hurt them, but hatred is a curved blade, and the harm we do to others we also do to ourselves.
Ruby's Struggles
One of the horrific things they did was put black doll in a coffin to represent Ruby. Because of her experiences while desegregating Ruby suffered from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).
Ruby explains that Eddie's father died from the pneumonia he caught on the beach the night he saved Mickey Shea. Eddie is shocked to learn about Mickey's attempt to rape his mother, and angrily says he would have let Mickey die after what he did.
He died from a heart attack, caused by the shock from a young Eddie running into the street after a lost ball on his birthday. The Blue Man teaches Eddie that all lives are connected, even strangers.
The first person Eddie meets in heaven. He was a sideshow worker at Ruby Pier when Eddie was a child. He was killed as a result of Eddie running in the street after his ball. The Blue Man teaches Eddie his first lesson, which is that there are no random acts in life, and that all incidents are intertwined in some way.
This seems to be Tala's way for forgiving Eddie and allowing him to heal her and fix what he had done to her. During the fifth lesson, Tala tells Eddie that his life did have a purpose: he was meant to work at Ruby Pier and keep the children safe.
Redemption and Forgiveness
Throughout the novel, Eddie's encounters with the five people he meets in heaven teach him about the surprising ways in which life and death offer opportunities for redemption.
Ruby may be warning of a coming devil (Tommy, perhaps, or the fascist tide in Europe). Or, as some fans speculated, the warning is that the daughter of the devil will die. If the devil is Tommy, then the daughter is Ruby.
Read our spoiler-filled episode one review here. – The Romani gypsy words spoken by Ruby in her fevered state appear to be “Tikno mora o beng o beng”. In this English/Romani dictionary, 'tikno' means child or small, 'mora' or 'maura' means to slay or kill, and 'o beng' means 'the devil'.
The final scene saw Lizzie telling Tommy that their daughter, Ruby, had fallen ill with a fever, and had been repeating the Romani words, "Tickna mora o'beng".
What is this person's connection to him? To his surprise, the third person Eddie meets in Heaven is someone he doesn't even recognize. But the old woman, Ruby, teaches him one of his most important lessons.
Eddie heroically sacrificed himself in the Upside Down to save Dustin and the others, fulfilling his arc by facing danger head-on instead of running away, as he said he had always done. Eddie's final act of heroism was hard to watch, but made even worse by what Dustin says about him afterward.
5. Tala: Eddie's life had a purpose; he kept children safe at the pier.) 3. Is it possible that Eddie's Five People each teach him more than one lesson? (Yes, it is possible that each person taught Eddie more than one thing.
The fifth person Eddie meets in Heaven is a young girl name Tala. Eddie accidentally caused her death during the war. Tala, the fifth person Eddie meets in Heaven, helps him make peace with himself and his life.
The people Eddie meets are- the Blue Man, the Captain, Ruby, his wife Marguerite, and Tala(read the book to know their stories). Surprisingly, out of all these five people, it is Tala- a young girl, who Eddie meets for the first time(in heaven, no less!), who had the most profound impact on him.
After the war, Eddie spends the rest of his life fighting depression. His depression worsens as everyone he loves dies before him. At the beginning of the novel, Eddie dies and begins a journey through heaven, where he travels through endless colors, and meets five important people who will each teach him a lesson.