The Five People You Meet in Heaven?

In the Five People You Meet in Heaven, Eddie asks his first person, "How long have I been dead?" The man replies "a minute, an hour, a thousand years." What do you believe the man means?

The Five People You Meet in Heaven?
Time is relative to those who are alive. They have a certain amount of days. The dead have eternity so one minute is barely recognizable let alone one day in eternity.
Reply:It doesn't matter, dead is dead.
Reply:he means that he never died.
Reply:Time is irrelevant once we are dead.
Reply:It could be a sarcastic/dismissive/deliberate remark to show Eddie (and the reader) that bigger concerns await then this artificial construct of time. A minute, an hour and a thousand years are measurements that apply really only to the living on Earth. Death and dying is a universal concept. To ask how long something - anything - is in the state of death would garner multiple answers.
Reply:I haven't read that book, but it immediately occured to me that this may be a commentary that the concept of time is purely man-made.





If our planet could think, it would not say to itself every 365 days, "wow, another year has gone by, happy birthday to me." Instead, it would say, "wow, I've gone all the way around the sun again." In other words, the journey would be acknowledged, but not quantified.





For almost as long as I can remember, I have not been a slave to calendars like many people are, including the whole birthday thing. All that stuff about, "gee, do you FEEL older?" always strikes me as idiotic. Someone's birthday rolls around and they groan about getting older. It's just weird to me. I just turned 45, but inside I feel the way I did in my 20s. It's not "Peter Pan Syndrome" -- longevity runs in my family, so I'm fairly certain I'll eventually wind up a creaky 95-year old -- but I'm not going to do a countdown! :-)
Reply:perhaps reincarnation?
Reply:That it does not matter how long he has been dead. The story goes on to show that only through his death does he even come close to understanding his life.
Reply:GATÉ GATÉ PARAGATÉ PARASAMGATÉ BODHI SVAHA