Course Materials For

Course Materials for

Introductory class: Death of Socrates and Perpetua 1. Mitch Albom: The Story of Dying  Book and Summary (SparkNotes)  Quote Mitch Albom (Detailed explanation needed)  Philosophy of George Carlin (PPT) 2. John Izzo: The Meaning before Dying  Short Movie  Book  Article: Kuru 3. Philosophical Reflection  Meaning and Death: Victor Frankl  Death, Philosophy of: Nishant (Article)  The Denial of Death: Earnest Beck (Article by Kuru) 4. Conclusion: Randy Pausch  Movie and Book  Boy’s Last Wish (PPT)  Beautifully Imperfect (PPT)  The Puppet or Farewell from a Genius (Gabriel Garcia Marquez, “Gabo”) (PPT) Reference Books  Albom, Mitch; Izzo, John  Death: Live it!; The Depth of Death Exercises  Class Notes (10 %)  Interview (3 persons) Report in about 600 x 4 words.  Reflections on “How I want to die” Strictly for Private Circulation Only

CONTENTS Meaning and Mortality ...... 1 The Suicide of Socrates and Perpetua ...... 3 Tuesdays with Morrie...... 6 The First Tuesday We Talk About the World 19 The Second Tuesday Feeling Sorry for Yourself 21 The Third Tuesday We Talk About Regrets 23 The Fourth Tuesday We Talk About Death 29 The Fifth Tuesday We Talk About Family 32 The Seventh Tuesday Fear o f Aging 40 The Eighth Tuesday We Talk About Money 42 The Ninth Tuesday Love Goes On 44 The Tenth Tuesday We Talk About Marriage 47 The Eleventh Tuesday We Talk About Our Culture 50 The Fourteenth Tuesday We Say Good-bye 58 Conclusion 60 Spark Note: Tuesdays with Morrie ...... 62 Mitch Albom Quotes ...... 95 Five Secrets of Life ...... 99 1. Be true to your own self ...... 99 2. Leaving No Regrets ...... 100 3. Becoming Love ...... 101 4. Living the Moment ...... 102 5. Giving More than Taking ...... 102 Kushwant Singh on Death ...... 104 Death: Philosophical Reflections ...... 106 Evil: The Desire to Deny Death and to be Divine ...... 109 Man's Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy...... 118 The Last Lecture ...... 121 The Puppet ...... 126

THE SUICIDE OF SOCRATES AND PERPETUA

On a day in 399 BC the philosopher Socrates stood before a jury of 500 of his fellow Athenians accused of "refusing to recognize the gods recognized by the state" and of "corrupting the youth." If found guilty; his penalty could be death. The trial took place in the heart of the city, the jurors seated on wooden benches surrounded by a crowd of spectators. Socrates' accusers (three Athenian citizens) were allotted three hours to present their case, after which, the philosopher would have three hours to defend himself. Socrates was 70 years old and familiar to most Athenians. His anti-democratic views had turned many in the city against him. Two of his students, Alcibiades and Critias, had twice briefly overthrown the democratic government of the city, instituting a reign of terror in which thousands of citizens were deprived of their property and either banished from the city or executed. After hearing the arguments of both Socrates and his accusers, the jury was asked to vote on his guilt. Under Athenian law the jurors did not deliberate the point. Instead, each juror registered his judgment by placing a small disk into an urn marked either "guilty" or "not guilty." Socrates was found guilty by a vote of 280 to 220. The jurors were next asked to determine Socrates' penalty. His accusers argued for the death penalty. Socrates was given the opportunity to suggest his own punishment and could probably have avoided death by recommending exile. Instead, the philosopher initially offered the sarcastic recommendation that he be rewarded for his actions. When pressed for a realistic punishment, he proposed that he be fined a modest sum of money. Faced with the two choices, the jury selected death for Socrates. The philosopher was taken to the near-by jail where his sentence would be carried out. Athenian law prescribed death by drinking a cup of poison hemlock. Socrates would be his own executioner. "What must I do?" Plato was Socrates' most famous student. Although he was not present at his mentor's death, he did know those who were there. Plato describes the scene through the narrative voice of the fictional character Phaedo. "When Crito heard, he signaled to the slave who was standing by. The boy went out, and returned after a few moments with the man who was to administer the poison which he brought ready mixed in a cup. When Socrates saw him, he said, 'Now, good sir, you understand these things. What must I do?' 'Just drink it and walk around until your legs begin to feel heavy, then lie down. It will soon act.' With that he offered Socrates the cup. The latter took it quite cheerfully without a tremor, with no change of color or expression. He just gave the man his stolid look, and asked, 'How say you, is it permissible to pledge this drink to anyone? May I?' The answer came, 'We allow reasonable time in which to drink it.' 'I understand', he said, 'we can and must pray to the gods that our sojourn on earth will continue happy beyond the grave. This is my prayer, and may it come to pass.' With these words, he stoically drank the potion, quite readily and cheerfully. Up till this moment most of us were able with some decency to hold back our tears, but when we saw him drinking the poison to the last drop, we could restrain ourselves no longer. In spite of myself, the tears came in floods, so that I covered my face

and wept - not for him, but at my own misfortune at losing such a man as my friend. Crito, even before me, rose and went out when he could check his tears no longer. Apollodorus was already steadily weeping, and by drying his eyes, crying again and sobbing, he affected everyone present except for Socrates himself. He said, 'You are strange fellows; what is wrong with you? I sent the women away for this very purpose, to stop their creating such a scene. I have heard that one should die in silence. So please be quiet and keep control of yourselves.' These words made us ashamed, and we stopped crying. Socrates walked around until he said that his legs were becoming heavy, when he lay on his back, as the attendant instructed. This fellow felt him, and then a moment later examined his feet and legs again. Squeezing a foot hard, he asked him if he felt anything. Socrates said that he did not. He did the same to his calves and, going higher, showed us that he was becoming cold and stiff. Then he felt him a last time and said that when the poison reached the heart he would be gone. As the chill sensation got to his waist, Socrates uncovered his head (he had put something over it) and said his last words: 'Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius. Do pay it. Don't forget.' 'Of course', said Crito. 'Do you want to say anything else?' 'There was no reply to this question, but after a while he gave a slight stir, and the attendant uncovered him and examined his eyes. Then Crito saw that he was dead, he closed his mouth and eyelids. This was the end of our friend, the best, wisest and most upright man of any that I have ever known" References: Plato's description appears in: Tredennick, Hugh (translator)The last days of Socrates: Euthyphro, The apology, Crito, Phaedo / Plato (1959); Freeman, Charles, The Greek Achievement (1999); Stone, I.F., The Trial of Socrates (1988). How To Cite This Article: "The Suicide of Socrates, 399 BC," EyeWitness to History, www.eyewitnesstohistory.com (2003).

Death of a Martyr, 203 AD (Perpetua) The Roman persecution of Christians began during the reign of Nero and persisted until Christianity was recognized as a legitimate religion by the Emperor Constantine 249 years later. This persecution was justified by the belief that the Christians' refusal to pay homage to Rome's pagan gods provoked their wrath. The disastrous consequence of a flood, drought, earthquake, or other calamity, was often attributed to the Christians' lack of piety and the resultant retribution of the gods. Christians were denounced as enemies of men and the gods and therefore subject to the severest tortures. Conviction did not lead inevitably to execution. Pardon would be granted if the Christian threw a few grains of incense on the altar of the pagan god and thereby recognize its dominance. If this offer was refused, more severe measures such as scourging or other tortures were implemented. If these failed, the victim was lead to the circus or theater and subjected to a horrible death for the amusement of the crowd and the placation of the gods. A Martyr's Death Vibia Perpetua was a young woman of noble birth. She was twenty-two, a wife, a mother of a young son and a Christian. In the city of Carthage in North Africa on March 7 of the year 203 she was put

to death for her religious convictions. Her story comes to us from three eyewitness accounts written shortly after her death. Perpetua was one of five Christians condemned to death in the arena. One of her companions, Felicitas, was a slave and eight months pregnant. Two days before her execution she gave birth to a daughter. Pepetua's father was a pagan and came often to the prison (many times with Perpetua's son in his arms) to plead with his daughter to renounce her religion and save her life - to no avail. On March 7 Perpetua and her four companions were led to the arena where the crowd demanded they be scourged. Then a boar, a bear and a leopard were loosened upon the men while the women were attacked by a wild bull. Wounded, Perpetua was then put to the sword. "When I was in the hands of the persecutors, my father in his tender solicitude tried hard to pervert me from the faith. 'My father,' I said, 'you see this pitcher. Can we call it by any other name than what it is?' 'No,' he said. 'Nor can I' [I said], 'call myself by any other name than that of Christian.' So he went away, but, on the rumor that we were to be tried, wasted away with anxiety. 'Daughter,' he said, 'have pity on my gray hairs; have pity on thy father. Do not give me over to disgrace. Behold thy brothers, thy mother, and thy aunt: behold thy child who cannot live without thee. Do not destroy us all.' Thus spake my father, kissing my hands, and throwing himself at my feet. And I wept because of my father, for he alone of all my family would not rejoice in my martyrdom. So I comforted him, saying: 'In this trial what God determines will take place. We are not in our own keeping, but in God's.' So he left me - weeping bitterly. [Perpetua and another Christian woman, Felicitas, were tossed and gored by a bull; but despite cruel manglings yet survived. Perpetua, says a sympathizing recorder] seemed in a trance. 'When are we to be tossed?' she asked, and could scarcely be induced to believe that she had suffered, in spite of the marks on her body. [They were presently stabbed to death by gladiators] after having exhorted the others to 'stand fast in the faith and love one another,' she guided to her own throat the uncertain hand of the young gladiator."

References: Perpetua's account appears in Davis, William Stearns, Readings in Ancient History vol. II (1913); Duruy, Victor, History of Rome and the Roman People (1883); Gibbon, Edward, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1896-1902).

How To Cite This Article: "Death of a Martyr, 203 AD" EyeWitness to History, www.eyewitnesstohistory.com (2004).

TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE

Albom, Mitch. Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson. New York: Anchor Books, 2006

The Curriculum The last class of my old professor's life took place once a week in his house, by a window in the study where he could watch a small hibiscus plant shed its pink leaves. The class met on Tuesdays. It began after breakfast. The subject was The Meaning of Life. It was taught from experience. No grades were given, but there were oral exams each week. You were expected to respond to questions, and you were expected to pose questions of your own. You were also required to perform physical tasks now and then, such as lifting the professor's head to a comfortable spot on the pillow or placing his glasses on the bridge of his nose. Kissing him good-bye earned you extra credit. No books were required, yet many topics were covered, including love, work, community, family, aging, forgiveness, and, finally, death. The last lecture was brief, only a few words. A funeral was held in lieu of graduation. Although no final exam was given, you were expected to produce one long paper on what was learned. That paper is presented here. The last class of my old professor's life had only one student. I was the student. *** It is the late spring of 1979, a hot, sticky Saturday afternoon. Hundreds of us sit together, side by side, in rows of wooden folding chairs on the main campus lawn. We wear blue nylon robes. We listen impatiently to long speeches. When the ceremony is over, we throw our caps in the air, and we are officially graduated from college, the senior class of Brandeis University in the city of Waltham, Massachusetts. For many of us, the curtain has just come down on childhood. Afterward, I find Morrie Schwartz, my favorite professor, and introduce him to my parents. He is a small man who takes small steps, as if a strong wind could, at any time, whisk him up into the clouds. In his graduation day robe, he looks like a cross between a biblical prophet and a Christmas elf He has sparkling blue green eyes, thinning silver hair that spills onto his forehead, big ears, a triangular nose, and tufts of graying eyebrows. Although his teeth are crooked and his lower ones are slanted back-as if someone had once punched them in-when he smiles it's as if you'd just told him the first joke on earth. He tells my parents how I took every class he taught. He tells them, "You have a special boy here. " Embarrassed, I look at my feet. Before we leave, I hand my professor a present, a tan briefcase with his initials on the front. I bought this the day before at a shopping mall. I didn't want to forget him. Maybe I didn't want him to forget me. "Mitch, you are one of the good ones," he says, admiring the briefcase. Then he hugs me. I feel his thin arms around my back. I am taller than he is, and when he holds me, I feel awkward, older, as if I were the parent and he were the child. He asks if I will stay in touch, and without hesitation I say, "Of course." When he steps back, I see that he is crying.

The Syllabus His death sentence came in the summer of 1994. Looking back, Morrie knew something bad was coming long before that. He knew it the day he gave up dancing. He had always been a dancer, my old professor. The music didn't matter. Rock and roll, big band, the blues. He loved them all. He would close his eyes and with a blissful smile begin to move to his own sense of rhythm. It wasn't always pretty. But then, he didn't worry about a partner. Morrie danced by himself. He used to go to this church in Harvard Square every Wednesday night for something called "Dance Free." They had flashing lights and booming speakers and Morrie would wander in among the mostly student crowd, wearing a white T-shirt and black sweatpants and a towel around his neck, and whatever music was playing, that's the music to which he danced. He'd do the lindy to Jimi Hendrix. He twisted and twirled, he waved his arms like a conductor on amphetamines, until sweat was dripping down the middle of his back. No one there knew he was a prominent doctor of sociology, with years of experience as a college professor and several well-respected books. They just thought he was some old nut. Once, he brought a tango tape and got them to play it over the speakers. Then he commandeered the floor, shooting back and forth like some hot Latin lover. When he finished, everyone applauded. He could have stayed in that moment forever. But then the dancing stopped. He developed asthma in his sixties. His breathing became labored. One day he was walking along the Charles River, and a cold burst of wind left him choking for air. He was rushed to the hospital and injected with Adrenalin. A few years later, he began to have trouble walking. At a birthday party for a friend, he stumbled inexplicably. Another night, he fell down the steps of a theater, startling a small crowd of people. "Give him air!" someone yelled. He was in his seventies by this point, so they whispered "old age" and helped him to his feet. But Morrie, who was always more in touch with his insides than the rest of us, knew something else was wrong. This was more than old age. He was weary all the time. He had trouble sleeping. He dreamt he was dying. He began to see doctors. Lots of them. They tested his blood. They tested his urine. They put a scope up his rear end and looked inside his intestines. Finally, when nothing could be found, one doctor ordered a muscle biopsy, taking a small piece out of Morrie's calf. The lab report came back suggesting a neurological problem, and Morrie was brought in for yet another series of tests. In one of those tests, he sat in a special seat as they zapped him with electrical current-an electric chair, of sortsand studied his neurological responses. "We need to check this further," the doctors said, looking over his results. "Why?" Morrie asked. "What is it?" "We're not sure. Your times are slow." His times were slow? What did that mean? Finally, on a hot, humid day in August 1994, Morrie and his wife, Charlotte, went to the neurologist's office, and he asked them to sit before he broke the news: Morrie had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Lou Gehrig's disease, a brutal, unforgiving illness of the neurological system. There was no known cure. "How did I get it?" Morrie asked. Nobody knew. "Is it terminal?" Yes. "So I'm going to die?" 7

Yes, you are, the doctor said. I'm very sorry. He sat with Morrie and Charlotte for nearly two hours, patiently answering their questions. When they left, the doctor gave them some information on ALS, little pamphlets, as if they were opening a bank account. Outside, the sun was shining and people were going about their business. A woman ran to put money in the parking meter. Another carried groceries. Charlotte had a million thoughts running through her mind: How much time do we have left? How will we manage? How will we pay the bills? My old professor, meanwhile, was stunned by the normalcy of the day around him. Shouldn't the world stop? Don't they know what has happened to me? But the world did not stop, it took no notice at all, and as Morrie pulled weakly on the car door, he felt as if he were dropping into a hole. Now what? he thought. *** As my old professor searched for answers, the disease took him over, day by day, week by week. He backed the car out of the garage one morning and could barely push the brakes. That was the end of his driving. He kept tripping, so he purchased a cane. That was the end of his walking free. He went for his regular swim at the YMCA, but found he could no longer undress himself. So he hired his first home care worker-a theology student named Tony-who helped him in and out of the pool, and in and out of his bathing suit. In the locker room, the other swimmers pretended not to stare. They stared anyhow. That was the end of his privacy. In the fall of 1994, Morrie came to the hilly Brandeis campus to teach his final college course. He could have skipped this, of course. The university would have understood. Why suffer in front of so many people? Stay at home. Get your affairs in order. But the idea of quitting did not occur to Morrie. Instead, he hobbled into the classroom, his home for more than thirty years. Because of the cane, he took a while to reach the chair. Finally, he sat down, dropped his glasses off his nose, and looked out at the young faces who stared back in silence. "My friends, I assume you are all here for the Social Psychology class. I have been teaching this course for twenty years, and this is the first time I can say there is a risk in taking it, because I have a fatal illness. I may not live to finish the semester. "If you feel this is a problem, I understand if you wish to drop the course." He smiled. And that was the end of his secret. *** ALS is like a lit candle: it melts your nerves and leaves your body a pile of wax. Often, it begins with the legs and works its way up. You lose control of your thigh muscles, so that you cannot support yourself standing. You lose control of your trunk muscles, so that you cannot sit up straight. By the end, if you are still alive, you are breathing through a tube in a hole in your throat, while your soul, perfectly awake, is imprisoned inside a limp husk, perhaps able to blink, or cluck a tongue, like something from a science fiction movie, the man frozen inside his own flesh. This takes no more than five years from the day you contract the disease. Morrie's doctors guessed he had two years left. Morrie knew it was less. But my old professor had made a profound decision, one he began to construct the day he came out of the doctor's office with a sword hanging over his head. Do I wither up and disappear, or do I make the best of my time left? he had asked himself.

He would not wither. He would not be ashamed of dying. Instead, he would make death his final project, the center point of his days. Since everyone was going to die, he could be of great value, right? He could be research. A human textbook. Study me in my slow and patient demise. Watch what happens to me. Learn with me. Morrie would walk that final bridge between life and death, and narrate the trip. *** The fall semester passed quickly. The pills increased. Therapy became a regular routine. Nurses came to his house to work with Morrie's withering legs, to keep the muscles active, bending them back and forth as if pumping water from a well. Massage specialists came by once a week to try to soothe the constant, heavy stiffness he felt. He met with meditation teachers, and closed his eyes and narrowed his thoughts until his world shrunk down to a single breath, in and out, in and out. One day, using his cane, he stepped onto the curb and fell over into the street. The cane was exchanged for a walker. As his body weakened, the back and forth to the bathroom became too exhausting, so Morrie began to urinate into a large beaker. He had to support himself as he did this, meaning someone had to hold the beaker while Morrie filled it. Most of us would be embarrassed by all this, especially at Morrie's age. But Morrie was not like most of us. When some of his close colleagues would visit, he would say to them, "Listen, I have to pee. Would you mind helping? Are you okay with that?" Often, to their own surprise, they were. In fact, he entertained a growing stream of visitors. He had discussion groups about dying, what it really meant, how societies had always been afraid of it without necessarily understanding it. He told his friends that if they really wanted to help him, they would treat him not with sympathy but with visits, phone calls, a sharing of their problems-the way they had always shared their problems, because Morrie had always been a wonderful listener. For all that was happening to him, his voice was strong and inviting, and his mind was vibrating with a million thoughts. He was intent on proving that the word "dying" was not synonymous with "useless." The New Year came and went. Although he never said it to anyone, Morrie knew this would be the last year of his life. He was using a wheelchair now, and he was fighting time to say all the things he wanted to say to all the people he loved. When a colleague at Brandeis died suddenly of a heart attack, Morrie went to his funeral. He came home depressed. "What a waste," he said. "All those people saying all those wonderful things, and Irv never got to hear any of it." Morrie had a better idea. He made some calls. He chose a date. And on a cold Sunday afternoon, he was joined in his home by a small group of friends and family for a "living funeral." Each of them spoke and paid tribute to my old professor. Some cried. Some laughed. One woman read a poem: "My dear and loving cousin . . . Your ageless heart as you move through time, layer on layer, tender sequoia . . ." Morrie cried and laughed with them. And all the heartfelt things we never get to say to those we love, Morrie said that day. His "living funeral" was a rousing success. Only Morrie wasn't dead yet. In fact, the most unusual part of his life was about to unfold.

The Student At this point, I should explain what had happened to me since that summer day when I last hugged my dear and wise professor, and promised to keep in touch.

I did not keep in touch. In fact, I lost contact with most of the people I knew in college, including my, beer-drinking friends and the first woman I ever woke up with in the morning. The years after graduation hardened me into someone quite different from the strutting graduate who left campus that day headed for New York City, ready to offer the world his talent. The world, I discovered, was not all that interested. I wandered around my early twenties, paying rent and reading classifieds and wondering why the lights were not turning green for me. My dream was to be a famous musician (I played the piano), but after several years of dark, empty nightclubs, broken promises, bands that kept breaking up and producers who seemed excited about everyone but me, the dream soured. I was failing for the first time in my life. At the same time, I had my first serious encounter with death. My favorite uncle, my mother's brother, the man who had taught me music, taught me to drive, teased me about girls, thrown me a football-that one adult whom I targeted as a child and said, "That's who I want to be when I grow up"-died of pancreatic cancer at the age of forty-four. He was a short, handsome man with a thick mustache, and I was with him for the last year of his life, living in an apartment just below his. I watched his strong body wither, then bloat, saw him suffer, night after night, doubled over at the dinner table, pressing on his stomach, his eyes shut, his mouth contorted in pain. "Ahhhhh, God," he would moan. "Ahhhhhh, Jesus!" The rest of us-my aunt, his two young sons, me-stood there, silently, cleaning the plates, averting our eyes. It was the most helpless I have ever felt in my life. One night in May, my uncle and I sat on the balcony of his apartment. It was breezy and warm. He looked out toward the horizon and said, through gritted teeth, that he wouldn't be around to see his kids into the next school year. He asked if I would look after them. I told him not to talk that way. He stared at me sadly. He died a few weeks later. After the funeral, my life changed. I felt as if time were suddenly precious, water going down an open drain, and I could not move quickly enough. No more playing music at half-empty night clubs. No more writing songs in my apartment, songs that no one would hear. I returned to school. I earned a master's degree in journalism and took the first job offered, as a sports writer. Instead of chasing my own fame, I wrote about famous athletes chasing theirs. I worked for newspapers and freelanced for magazines. I worked at a pace that knew no hours, no limits. I would wake up in the morning, brush my teeth, and sit down at the typewriter in the same clothes I had slept in. My uncle had worked for a corporation and hated it-same thing, every day-and I was determined never to end up like him. I bounced around from New York to Florida and eventually took a job in Detroit as a columnist for the Detroit Free Press. The sports appetite in that city was insatiable-they had professional teams in football, basketball, baseball, and hockey-and it matched my ambition. In a few years, I was not only penning columns, I was writing sports books, doing radio shows, and appearing regularly on TV, spouting my opinions on rich football players and hypocritical college sports programs. I was part of the media thunderstorm that now soaks our country. I was in demand. I stopped renting. I started buying. I bought a house on a hill. I bought cars. I invested in stocks and built a portfolio. I was cranked to a fifth gear, and everything I did, I did on a deadline. I exercised like a demon. I drove my car at breakneck speed. I made more money than I had ever figured to see. I met a dark-haired woman named Janine who somehow loved me despite my schedule and the constant absences. We married after a seven year courtship. I was back to work a week after the wedding. I told her-and myself-that we would one day start a family, something she wanted very much. But that day never came. Instead, I buried myself in accomplishments, because with accomplishments, I believed I could

control things, I could squeeze in every last piece of happiness before I got sick and died, like my uncle before me, which I figured was my natural fate. As for Morrie? Well, I thought about him now and then, the things he had taught me about "being human" and "relating to others," but it was always in the distance, as if from another life. Over the years, I threw away any mail that came from Brandeis University, figuring they were only asking for money. So I did not know of Morrie's illness. The people who might have told me were long forgotten, their phone numbers buried in some packed-away box in the attic. It might have stayed that way, had I not been flicking through the TV channels late one night, when something caught my ear . . .

The Audiovisual In March of 1995, a limousine carrying Ted Koppel, the host of ABC-TV's "Nightline" pulled up to the snow-covered curb outside Morrie's house in West Newton, Massachusetts. Morrie was in a wheelchair full-time now, getting used to helpers lifting him like a heavy sack from the chair to the bed and the bed to the chair. He had begun to cough while eating, and chewing was a chore. His legs were dead; he would never walk again. Yet he refused to be depressed. Instead, Morrie had become a lightning rod of ideas. He jotted down his thoughts on yellow pads, envelopes, folders, scrap paper. He wrote bite-sized philosophies about living with death's shadow: "Accept what you are able to do and what you are not able to do"; "Accept the past as past, without denying it or discarding it"; "Learn to forgive yourself and to forgive others"; "Don't assume that it's too late to get involved." After a while, he had more than fifty of these "aphorisms," which he shared with his friends. One friend, a fellow Brandeis professor named Maurie Stein, was so taken with the words that he sent them to a Boston Globe reporter, who came out and wrote a long feature story on Morrie. The headline read: A PROFESSOR'S FINAL COURSE: HIS OWN DEATH The article caught the eye of a producer from the "Nightline" show, who brought it to Koppel in Washington, D. C. "Take a look at this," the producer said. Next thing you knew, there were cameramen in Morrie's living room and Koppel's limousine was in front of the house. Several of Morrie's friends and family members had gathered to meet Koppel, and when the famous man entered the house, they buzzed with excitement-all except Morrie, who wheeled himself forward, raised his eyebrows, and interrupted the clamor with his high, singsong voice. "Ted, I need to check you out before I agree to do this interview." There was an awkward moment of silence, then the two men were ushered into the study. The door was shut. "Man," one friend whispered outside the door, "I hope Ted goes easy on Morrie." "I hope Morrie goes easy on Ted," said the other. Inside the office, Morrie motioned for Koppel to sit down. He crossed his hands in his lap and smiled. "Tell me something close to your heart," Morrie began. "My heart?" Koppel studied the old man. "All right," he said cautiously, and he spoke about his children. They were close to his heart, weren't they? "Good," Morrie said. "Now tell me something, about your faith." Koppel was uncomfortable. "I usually don't talk about such things with people I've only known a 11

few minutes." "Ted, I'm dying," Morrie said, peering over his glasses. "I don't have a lot of time here." Koppel laughed. All right. Faith. He quoted a passage from Marcus Aurelius, something he felt strongly about. Morrie nodded. "Now let me ask you something," Koppel said. "Have you ever seen my program?" Morrie shrugged. "Twice, I think." "Twice? That's all?" "Don't feel bad. I've only seen Òprah' once." "Well, the two times you saw my show, what did you think?" Morrie paused. "To be honest?" "Yes?" "I thought you were a narcissist." Koppel burst into laughter. "I'm too ugly to be a narcissist," he said. *** Soon the cameras were rolling in front of the living room fireplace, with Koppel in his crisp blue suit and Morrie in his shaggy gray sweater. He had refused fancy clothes or makeup for this interview. His philosophy was that death should not be embarrassing; he was not about to powder its nose. Because Morrie sat in the wheelchair, the camera never caught his withered legs. And because he was still able to move his hands-Morrie always spoke with both hands waving-he showed great passion when explaining how you face the end of life. "Ted," he said, "when all this started, I asked myself, Àm I going to withdraw from the world, like most people do, or am I going to live?' I decided I'm going to live-or at least try to live-the way I want, with dignity, with courage, with humor, with composure. "There are some mornings when I cry and cry and mourn for myself. Some mornings, I'm so angry and bitter. But it doesn't last too long. Then I get up and say, Ì want to live . . .' "So far, I've been able to do it. Will I be able to continue? I don't know. But I'm betting on myself that I will." Koppel seemed extremely taken with Morrie. He asked about the humility that death induced. "Well, Fred," Morrie said accidentally, then he quickly corrected himself. "I mean Ted . . . " "Now that's inducing humility," Koppel said, laughing. The two men spoke about the afterlife. They spoke about Morrie's increasing dependency on other people. He already needed help eating and sitting and moving from place to place. What, Koppel asked, did Morrie dread the most about his slow, insidious decay? Morrie paused. He asked if he could say this certain thing on television. Koppel said go ahead. Morrie looked straight into the eyes of the most famous interviewer in America. "Well, Ted, one day soon, someone's gonna have to wipe my ass." *** The program aired on a Friday night. It began with Ted Koppel from behind the desk in Washington, his voice booming with authority. "Who is Morrie Schwartz," he said, "and why, by the end of the night, are so many of you going to care about him?" A thousand miles away, in my house on the hill, I was casually flipping channels. I heard these words from the TV set "Who is Morrie Schwartz?"-and went numb.

*** It is our first class together, in the spring of 1976. I enter Morrie's large office and notice the

seemingly countless books that line the wall, shelf after shelf. Books on sociology, philosophy, religion, psychology. There is a large rug on the hardwood floor and a window that looks out on the campus walk. Only a dozen or so students are there, fumbling with notebooks and syllabi. Most of them wear jeans and earth shoes and plaid flannel shirts. I tell myself it will not be easy to cut a class this small. Maybe I shouldn't take it. "Mitchell?" Morrie says, reading from the attendance list. I raise a hand. "Do you prefer Mitch? Or is Mitchell better?" I have never been asked this by a teacher. I do a double take at this guy in his yellow turtleneck and green corduroy pants, the silver hair that falls on his forehead. He is smiling. Mitch, I say. Mitch is what my friends called me. "Well, Mitch it is then," Morrie says, as if closing a deal. "And, Mitch?" Yes? "I hope that one day you will think of me as your friend."

The Orientation As I turned the rental car onto Morrie's street in West Newton, a quiet suburb of Boston, I had a cup of coffee in one hand and a cellular phone between my ear and shoulder. I was talking to a TV producer about a piece we were doing. My eyes jumped from the digital clock-my return flight was in a few hours-to the mailbox numbers on the tree-lined suburban street. The car radio was on, the all-news station. This was how I operated, five things at once. "Roll back the tape," I said to the producer. "Let me hear that part again." "Okay," he said. "It's gonna take a second." Suddenly, I was upon the house. I pushed the brakes, spilling coffee in my lap. As the car stopped, I caught a glimpse of a large Japanese maple tree and three figures sitting near it in the driveway, a young man and a middleaged woman flanking a small old man in a wheelchair. Morrie. At the sight of my old professor, I froze. "Hello?" the producer said in my ear. "Did I lose you?... " I had not seen him in sixteen years. His hair was thinner, nearly white, and his face was gaunt. I suddenly felt unprepared for this reunion-for one thing, I was stuck on the phone-and I hoped that he hadn'the noticed my arrival, so that I could drive around the block a few more times, finish my business, get mentally ready. But Morrie, this new, withered version of a man I had once known so well, was smiling at the car, hands folded in his lap, waiting for me to emerge. "Hey?" the producer said again. "Are you there?" For all the time we'd spent together, for all the kindness and patience Morrie had shown me when I was young, I should have dropped the phone and jumped from the car, run and held him and kissed him hello. Instead, I killed the engine and sunk down off the seat, as if I were looking for something. "Yeah, yeah, I'm here," I whispered, and continued my conversation with the TV producer until we were finished. I did what I had become best at doing: I tended to my work, even while my dying professor waited on his front lawn. I am not proud of this, but that is what I did. *** Now, five minutes later, Morrie was hugging me, his thinning hair rubbing against my cheek. I had told him I was searching for my keys, that's what had taken me so long in the car, and I squeezed him tighter, as if I could crush my little lie. Although the spring sunshine was warm, he wore a windbreaker and his legs were covered by a blanket. He smelled faintly sour, the way people on medication sometimes do. With his face pressed close to mine, I could hear his labored breathing in

my ear. "My old friend," he whispered, "you've come back at last." He rocked against me, not letting go, his hands reaching up for my elbows as I bent over him. I was surprised at such affection after all these years, but then, in the stone walls I had built between my present and my past, I had forgotten how close we once were. I remembered graduation day, the briefcase, his tears at my departure, and I swallowed because I knew, deep down, that I was no longer the good, gift-bearing student he remembered. I only hoped that, for the next few hours, I could fool him. Inside the house, we sat at a walnut dining room table, near a window that looked out on the neighbor's house. Morrie fussed with his wheelchair, trying to get comfortable. As was his custom, he wanted to feed me, and I said all right. One of the helpers, a stout Italian woman named Connie, cut up bread and tomatoes and brought containers of chicken salad, hummus, and tabouli. She also brought some pills. Morrie looked at them and sighed. His eyes were more sunken than I remembered them, and his cheekbones more pronounced. This gave him a harsher, older look-until he smiled, of course, and the sagging cheeks gathered up like curtains. "Mitch," he said softly, "you know that I'm dying." I knew. "All right, then." Morrie swallowed the pills, put down the paper cup, inhaled deeply, then let it out. "Shall I tell you what it's like?" What it's like? To die? "Yes," he said. Although I was unaware of it, our last class had just begun. *** It is my freshman year. Morrie is older than most of the teachers, and I am younger than most of the students, having left high school a year early. To compensate for my youth on campus, I wear old gray sweatshirts and box in a local gym and walk around with an unlit cigarette in my mouth, even though I do not smoke. I drive a beat-up Mercury Cougar, with the windows down and the music up. I seek my identity in toughness-but it is Morrie's softness that draws me, and because he does not look at me as a kid trying to be something more than I am, I relax. I finish that first course with him and enroll for another. He is an easy marker; he does not much care for grades. One year, they say, during the Vietnam War, Morrie gave all his male students A's to help them keep their student deferments. I begin to call Morrie "Coach," the way I used to address my high school track coach. Morrie likes the nickname. "Coach, " he says. "All right, I'll be your coach. And you can be my player. You can play all the lovely parts of life that I'm too old for now." Sometimes we eat together in the cafeteria. Morrie, to my delight, is even more of a slob than I am. He talks instead of chewing, laughs with his mouth open, delivers a passionate thought through a mouthful of egg salad, the little yellow pieces spewing from his teeth. It cracks me up. The whole time I know him, I have two overwhelming desires: to hug him and to give him a napkin.

The Classroom The sun beamed in through the dining room window, lighting up the hardwood floor. We had been talking there for nearly two hours. The phone rang yet again and Morrie asked his helper, Connie, to get it. She had been jotting the callers' names in Morrie's small black appointment book. Friends.

Meditation teachers. A discussion group. Someone who wanted to photograph him for a magazine. It was clear I was not the only one interested in visiting my old professor-the "Nightline" appearance had made him something of a celebrity-but I was impressed with, perhaps even a bit envious of, all the friends that Morrie seemed to have. I thought about the "buddies" that circled my orbit back in college. Where had they gone? "You know, Mitch, now that I'm dying, I've become much more interesting to people." You were always interesting. "Ho." Morrie smiled. "You're kind." No, I'm not, I thought. "Here's the thing," he said. "People see me as a bridge. I'm not as alive as I used to be, but I'm not yet dead. I'm sort of . . . in-between." He coughed, then regained his smile. "I'm on the last great journey here-and people want me to tell them what to pack." The phone rang again. "Morrie, can you talk?" Connie asked. "I'm visiting with my old pal now," he announced. "Let them call back." I cannot tell you why he received me so warmly. I was hardly the promising student who had left him sixteen years earlier. Had it not been for "Nightline," Morrie might have died without ever seeing me again. I had no good excuse for this, except the one that everyone these days seems to have. I had become too wrapped up in the siren song of my own life. I was busy. What happened to me? I asked myself. Morrie's high, smoky voice took me back to my university years, when I thought rich people were evil, a shirt and tie were prison clothes, and life without freedom to get up and go motorcycle beneath you, breeze in your face, down the streets of Paris, into the mountains of Tibet-was not a good life at all. What happened to me? The eighties happened. The nineties happened. Death and sickness and getting fat and going bald happened. I traded lots of dreams for a bigger paycheck, and I never even realized I was doing it. Yet here was Morrie talking with the wonder of our college years, as if I'd simply been on a long vacation. "Have you found someone to share your heart with?" he asked. "Are you giving to your community? "Are you at peace with yourself? "Are you trying to be as human as you can be?" I squirmed, wanting to show I had been grappling deeply with such questions. What happened to me? I once promised myself I would never work for money, that I would join the Peace Corps, that I would live in beautiful, inspirational places. Instead, I had been in Detroit for ten years now, at the same workplace, using the same bank, visiting the same barber. I was thirty-seven, more efficient than in college, tied to computers and modems and cell phones. I wrote articles about rich athletes who, for the most part, could not care less about people like me. I was no longer young for my peer group, nor did I walk around in gray sweatshirts with unlit cigarettes in my mouth. I did not have long discussions over egg salad sandwiches about the meaning of life. My days were full, yet I remained, much of the time, unsatisfied. What happened to me? "Coach," I said suddenly, remembering the nickname. Morrie beamed. "That's me. I'm still your coach." He laughed and resumed his eating, a meal he had started forty minutes earlier. I watched him now, his hands working gingerly, as if he were learning to use them for the very first time. He could not press down hard with a knife. His fingers shook. Each bite was a struggle; he chewed the food finely before swallowing, and sometimes it slid out

the sides of his lips, so that he had to put down what he was holding to dab his face with a napkin. The skin from his wrist to his knuckles was dotted with age spots, and it was loose, like skin hanging from a chicken soup bone. For a while, we just ate like that, a sick old man, a healthy, younger man, both absorbing the quiet of the room. I would say it was an embarrassed silence, but I seemed to be the only one embarrassed. "Dying," Morrie suddenly said, "is only one thing to be sad over, Mitch. Living unhappily is something else. So many of the people who come to visit me are unhappy." Why? "Well, for one thing, the culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. We're teaching the wrong things. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn't work, don't buy it. Create your own. Most people can't do it. They're more unhappy than me-even in my current condition. "I may be dying, but I am surrounded by loving, caring souls. How many people can say that?" I was astonished by his complete lack of self-pity. Morrie, who could no longer dance, swim, bathe, or walk; Morrie, who could no longer answer his own door, dry himself after a shower, or even roll over in bed. How could he be so accepting? I watched him struggle with his fork, picking at a piece of tomato, missing it the first two times-a pathetic scene, and yet I could not deny that sitting in his presence was almost magically serene, the same calm breeze that soothed me back in college. I shot a glance at my watch-force of habit-it was getting late, and I thought about changing my plane reservation home. Then Morrie did something that haunts me to this day. "You know how I'm going to die?" he said. I raised my eyebrows. "I'm going to suffocate. Yes. My lungs, because of my asthma, can't handle the disease. It's moving up my body, this ALS. It's already got my legs. Pretty soon it'll get my arms and hands. And when it hits my lungs . . . He shrugged his shoulders. ". . . I'm sunk." I had no idea what to say, so I said, "Well, you know, I mean . . . you never know." Morrie closed his eyes. "I know, Mitch. You mustn't be afraid of my dying. I've had a good life, and we all know it's going to happen. I maybe have four or five months." Come on, I said nervously. Nobody can say "I can," he said softly. "There's even a little test. A doctor showed me." A test? "Inhale a few times." I did as he said. "Now, once more, but this time, when you exhale, count as many numbers as you can before you take another breath." I quickly exhaled the numbers. "One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight . . ." I reached seventy before my breath was gone. "Good," Morrie said. "You have healthy lungs. Now. Watch what I do." He inhaled, then began his number count in a soft, wobbly voice. "One-two-three-four-five-six- seven-eight-nine-ten-eleven-twelve-thirteen-fourteen-fifteensixteen-seventeen-eighteen-" He stopped, gasping for air. "When the doctor first asked me to do this, I could reach twenty-three. Now it's eighteen." He closed his eyes, shook his head. "My tank is almost empty." I tapped my thighs nervously. That was enough for one afternoon. "Come back and see your old professor," Morrie said when I hugged him good-bye. I promised I would, and I tried not to think about the last time I promised this.

*** In the campus bookstore, I shop for the items on Morrie's reading list. I purchase books that I never knew existed, titles such as Youth: Identity and Crisis, I and Thou, The Divided Self. Before college I did not know the study of human relations could be considered scholarly. Until I met Morrie, I did not believe it. But his passion for books is real and contagious. We begin to talk seriously sometimes, after class, when the room has emptied. He asks me questions about my life, then quotes lines from Erich Fromm, Martin Buber, Erik Erikson. Often he defers to their words, footnoting his own advice, even though he obviously thought the same things himself. It is at these times that I realize he is indeed a professor, not an uncle. One afternoon, I am complaining about the confusion of my age, what is expected of me versus what I want for myself. "Have I told you about the tension of opposites?" he says. The tension of opposites? "Life is a series of pulls back and forth. You want to do one thing, but you are bound to do something else. Something hurts you, yet you know it shouldn't. You take certain things for granted, even when you know you should never take anything for granted. "A tension of opposites, like a pull on a rubber band. And most of us live somewhere in the middle. " Sounds like a wrestling match, I say. "A wrestling match." He laughs. "Yes, you could describe life that way." So which side wins, I ask? " Which side wins?" He smiles at me, the crinkled eyes, the crooked teeth. "Love wins. Love always wins."

Taking Attendance I flew to London a few weeks later. I was covering Wimbledon, the world's premier tennis competition and one of the few events I go to where the crowd never boos and no one is drunk in the parking lot. England was warm and cloudy, and each morning I walked the treelined streets near the tennis courts, passing teenagers cued up for leftover tickets and vendors selling strawberries and cream. Outside the gate was a newsstand that sold a halfdozen colorful British tabloids, featuring photos of topless women, paparazzi pictures of the royal family, horoscopes, sports, lottery contests, and a wee bit of actual news. Their top headline of the day was written on a small chalkboard that leaned against the latest stack of papers, and usually read something like DIANA IN ROW WITH CHARLES! or GAZZA TO TEAM: GIVE ME MILLIONS! People scooped up these tabloids, devoured their gossip, and on previous trips to England, I had always done the same. But now, for some reason, I found myself thinking about Morrie whenever I read anything silly or mindless. I kept picturing him there, in the house with the Japanese maple and the hardwood floors, counting his breath, squeezing out every moment with his loved ones, while I spent so many hours on things that meant absolutely nothing to me personally: movie stars, supermodels, the latest noise out of Princess Di or Madonna or John F. Kennedy, Jr. In a strange way, I envied the quality of Morrie's time even as I lamented its diminishing supply. Why did we, bother with all the distractions we did? Back home, the O. J. Simpson trial was in full swing, and there were people who surrendered their entire lunch hours watching it, then taped the rest so they could watch more at night. They didn't know O. J. Simpson. They didn't know anyone involved in the case. Yet they gave up days and weeks of their lives, addicted to someone else's drama. I remembered what Morrie said during our visit: "The culture we have does not make people feel

good about themselves. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn't work, don't buy it." Morrie, true to these words, had developed his own culture-long before he got sick. Discussion groups, walks with friends, dancing to his music in the Harvard Square church. He started a project called Greenhouse, where poor people could receive mental health services. He read books to find new ideas for his classes, visited with colleagues, kept up with old students, wrote letters to distant friends. He took more time eating and looking at nature and wasted no time in front of TV sitcoms or "Movies of the Week." He had created a cocoon of human activities-conversation, interaction, affection-and it filled his life like an overflowing soup bowl. I had also developed my own culture. Work. I did four or five media jobs in England, juggling them like a clown. I spent eight hours a day on a computer, feeding my stories back to the States. Then I did TV pieces, traveling with a crew throughout parts of London. I also phoned in radio reports every morning and afternoon. This was not an abnormal load. Over the years, I had taken labor as my companion and had moved everything else to the side. In Wimbledon; I ate meals at my little wooden work cubicle and thought nothing of it. On one particularly crazy day, a crush of reporters had tried to chase down Andre Agassi and his famous girlfriend, Brooke Shields, and I had gotten knocked over by a British photographer who barely muttered "Sorry" before sweeping past, his huge metal lenses strapped around his neck. I thought of something else Morrie had told me: "So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they're busy doing things they think are important. This is because they're chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning." I knew he was right. Not that I did anything about it. At the end of the tournament-and the countless cups of coffee I drank to get through it-I closed my computer, cleaned out my cubicle, and went back to the apartment to pack. It was late. The TV was nothing but fuzz. I flew to Detroit, arrived late in the afternoon, dragged myself home and went to sleep. I awoke to a jolting piece of news: the unions at my newspaper had gone on strike. The place was shut down. There were picketers at the front entrance and marchers chanting up and down the street. As a member of the union, I had no choice: I was suddenly, and for the first time in my life, out of a job, out of a paycheck, and pitted against my employers. Union leaders called my home and warned me against any contact with my former editors, many of whom were my friends, telling me to hang up if they tried to call and plead their case. "We're going to fight until we win!" the union leaders swore, sounding like soldiers. I felt confused and depressed. Although the TV and radio work were nice supplements, the newspaper had been my lifeline, my oxygen; when I saw my stories in print in each morning, I knew that, in at least one way, I was alive. Now it was gone. And as the strike continued-the first day, the second day, the third day-there were worried phone calls and rumors that this could go on for months. Everything I had known was upside down. There were sporting events each night that I would have gone to cover. Instead, I stayed home, watched them on TV. I had grown used to thinking readers somehow needed my column. I was stunned at how easily things went on without me. After a week of this, I picked up the phone and dialed Morrie's number. Connie brought him to the phone. "You're coming to visit me," he said, less a question than a statement.

Well. Could I? "How about Tuesday?" Tuesday would be good, I said. Tuesday would be fine. *** In my sophomore year, I take two more of his courses. We go beyond the classroom, meeting now and then just to talk. I have never done this before with an adult who was not a relative, yet I feel comfortable doing it with Morrie, and he seems comfortable making the time. "Where shall we visit today?" he asks cheerily when I enter his office. In the spring, we sit under a tree outside the sociology building, and in the winter, we sit by his desk, me in my gray sweatshirts and Adidas sneakers, Morrie in Rockport shoes and corduroy pants. Each time we talk, lie listens to me ramble, then he tries to pass on some sort of life lesson. He warns me that money is not the most important thing, contrary to the popular view on campus. He tells me I need to be "fully human." He speaks of the alienation of youth and the need for "connectedness" with the society around me. Some of these things I understand, some I do not. It makes no difference. The discussions give me an excuse to talk to him, fatherly conversations I cannot have with my own father, who would like me to be a lawyer. Morrie hates lawyers. "What do you want to do when you get out of college?" he asks. I want to be a musician, I say. Piano player. "Wonderful," he says. "But that's a hard life." Yeah. "A lot of sharks." That's what I hear. "Still," he says, "if you really want it, then you'll make your dream happen. " I want to hug him, to thank him for saying that, but I am not that open. I only nod instead. "I'll bet you play piano with a lot of pep," he says. I laugh. Pep? He laughs back. "Pep. What's the matter? They don't say that anymore?"

The First Tuesday We Talk About the World Connie opened the door and let me in. Morrie was in his wheelchair by the kitchen table, wearing a loose cotton shirt and even looser black sweatpants. They were loose because his legs had atrophied beyond normal clothing size-you could get two hands around his thighs and have your fingers touch. Had he been able to stand, he'd have been no more than five feet tall, and he'd probably have fit into a sixth grader's jeans. "I got you something," I announced, holding up a brown paper bag. I had stopped on my way from the airport at a nearby supermarket and purchased some turkey, potato salad, macaroni salad, and bagels. I knew there was plenty of food at the house, but I wanted to contribute something. I was so powerless to help Morrie otherwise. And I remembered his fondness for eating. "Ah, so much food!" he sang. "Well. Now you have to eat it with me." We sat at the kitchen table, surrounded by wicker chairs. This time, without the need to make up sixteen years of information, we slid quickly into the familiar waters of our old college dialogue, Morrie asking questions, listening to my replies, stopping like a chef to sprinkle in something I'd forgotten or hadn't realized. He asked about the newspaper strike, and true to form, he couldn't understand why both sides didn't simply communicate with each other and solve their problems. I told him not everyone was as smart as he was. Occasionally, he had to stop to use the bathroom, a process that took some time. Connie would wheel him to the toilet, then lift him from the chair and support him as he urinated into the beaker. Each time he came back, he looked tired. 19

"Do you remember when I told Ted Koppel that pretty soon someone was gonna have to wipe my ass?" he said. I laughed. You don't forget a moment like that. "Well, I think that day is coming. That one bothers me." Why? "Because it's the ultimate sign of dependency. Someone wiping your bottom. But I'm working on it. I'm trying to enjoy the process." Enjoy it? "Yes. After all, I get to be a baby one more time." That's a unique way of looking at it. "Well, I have to look at life uniquely now. Let's face it. I can't go shopping, I can't take care of the bank accounts, I can't take out the garbage. But I can sit here with my dwindling days and look at what I think is important in life. I have both the time-and the reason-to do that." So, I said, in a reflexively cynical response, I guess the key to finding the meaning of life is to stop taking out the garbage? He laughed, and I was relieved that he did. *** As Connie took the plates away, I noticed a stack of newspapers that had obviously been read before I got there. You bother keeping up with the news, I asked? "Yes," Morrie said. "Do you think that's strange? Do you think because I'm dying, I shouldn't care what happens in this world?" Maybe. He sighed. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I shouldn't care. After all, I won't be around to see how it all turns out. "But it's hard to explain, Mitch. Now that I'm suffering, I feel closer to people who suffer than I ever did before. The other night, on TV, I saw people in Bosnia running across the street, getting fired upon, killed, innocent victims . . . and I just started to cry. I feel their anguish as if it were my own. I don't know any of these people. But-how can I put this?-I'm almost . . . drawn to them." His eyes got moist, and I tried to change the subject, but he dabbed his face and waved me off. "I cry all the time now," he said. "Never mind." Amazing, I thought. I worked in the news business. I covered stories where people died. I interviewed grieving family members. I even attended the funerals. I never cried. Morrie, for the suffering of people half a world away, was weeping. Is this what comes at the end, I wondered? Maybe death is the great equalizer, the one big thing that can finally make strangers shed a tear for one another. Morrie honked loudly into the tissue. "This is okay with you, isn't it? Men crying?" Sure, I said, too quickly. He grinned. "Ah, Mitch, I'm gonna loosen you up. One day, I'm gonna show you it's okay to cry." Yeah, yeah, I said. "Yeah, yeah," he said. We laughed because he used to say the same thing nearly twenty years earlier. Mostly on Tuesdays. In fact, Tuesday had always been our day together. Most of my courses with Morrie were on Tuesdays, he had office hours on Tuesdays, and when I wrote my senior thesis which was pretty much Morrie's suggestion, right from the start-it was on Tuesdays that we sat together, by his desk, or in the cafeteria, or on the steps of Pearlman Hall, going over the work. So it seemed only fitting that we were back together on a Tuesday, here in the house with the Japanese maple out front. As I readied to go, I mentioned this to Morrie.

"We're Tuesday people," he said. Tuesday people, I repeated. Morrie smiled. "Mitch, you asked about caring for people I don't even know. But can I tell you the thing I'm learning most with this disease?" What's that? "The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in." His voice dropped to a whisper. "Let it come in. We think we don't deserve love, we think if we let it in we'll become too soft. But a wise man named Levine said it right. He said, `Love is the only rational act.' " He repeated it carefully, pausing for effect. " `Love is the only rational act.' " I nodded, like a good student, and he exhaled weakly. I leaned over to give him a hug. And then, although it is not really like me, I kissed him on the cheek. I felt his weakened hands on my arms, the thin stubble of his whiskers brushing my face. "So you'll come back next Tuesday?" he whispered. *** He enters the classroom, sits down, doesn't say anything. He looks at its, we look at him. At first, there are a few giggles, but Morrie only shrugs, and eventually a deep silence falls and we begin to notice the smallest sounds, the radiator humming in the corner of the room, the nasal breathing of one of the fat students. Some of us are agitated. When is lie going to say something? We squirm, check our watches. A few students look out the window, trying to be above it all. This goes on a good fifteen minutes, before Morrie finally breaks in with a whisper. "What's happening here?" he asks. And slowly a discussion begins - as Morrie has wanted all along - about the effect of silence on human relations. Why are we embarrassed by silence? What comfort do we find in all the noise? I am not bothered by the silence. For all the noise I make with my friends, I am still not comfortable talking about my feelings in front of others-especially not classmates. I could sit in the quiet for hours if that is what the class demanded. On my way out, Morrie stops me. "You didn't say much today," he remarks. I don't know. I just didn't have anything to add. "I think you have a lot to add. In fact, Mitch, you remind me of someone I knew who also liked to keep things to himself when he was younger." Who? "Me."

The Second Tuesday We Talk About Feeling Sorry for Yourself I came back the next Tuesday. And for many Tuesdays that followed. I looked forward to these visits more than one would think, considering I was flying seven hundred miles to sit alongside a dying man. But I seemed to slip into a time warp when I visited Morrie, and I liked myself better when I was there. I no longer rented a cellular phone for the rides from the airport. Let them wait, I told myself, mimicking Morrie. The newspaper situation in Detroit had not improved. In fact, it had grown increasingly insane, with nasty confrontations between picketers and replacement workers, people arrested, beaten, lying in the street in front of delivery trucks. In light of this, my visits with Morrie felt like a cleansing rinse of human kindness. We talked about life and we talked about love. We talked about one of Morrie's favorite subjects, compassion, and 21

why our society had such a shortage of it. Before my third visit, I stopped at a market called Bread and Circus-I had seen their bags in Morrie's house and figured he must like the food there-and I loaded up with plastic containers from their fresh food take-away, things like vermicelli with vegetables and carrot soup and baklava. When I entered Morrie's study, I lifted the bags as if I'd just robbed a bank. "Food man!" I bellowed. Morrie rolled his eyes and smiled. Meanwhile, I looked for signs of the disease's progression. His fingers worked well enough to write with a pencil, or hold up his glasses, but he could not lift his arms much higher than his chest. He was spending less and less time in the kitchen or living room and more in his study, where he had a large eclining chair set up with pillows, blankets, and specially cut pieces of foam rubber that held his feet and gave support to his withered legs. He kept a bell near his side, and when his head needed adjusting or he had to "go on the commode," as he referred to it, he would shake the bell and Connie, Tony, Bertha, or Amy-his small army of home care workers would come in. It wasn't always easy for him to lift the bell, and he got frustrated when he couldn't make it work. I asked Morrie if he felt sorry for himself. "Sometimes, in the mornings," he said. "That's when I mourn. I feel around my body, I move my fingers and my hands-whatever I can still move-and I mourn what I've lost. I mourn the slow, insidious way in which I'm dying. But then I stop mourning." Just like that? "I give myself a good cry if I need it. But then I concentrate on all the good things still in my life. On the people who are coming to see me. On the stories I'm going to hear. On you-if it's Tuesday. Because we're Tuesday people." I grinned. Tuesday people. "Mitch, I don't allow myself any more self-pity than that. A little each morning, a few tears, and that's all." I thought about all the people I knew who spent many of their waking hours feeling sorry for themselves. How useful it would be to put a daily limit on self-pity. just a few tearful minutes, then on with the day. And if Morrie could do it, with such a horrible disease . . . "It's only horrible if you see it that way," Morrie said. "It's horrible to watch my body slowly wilt away to nothing. But it's also wonderful because of all the time I get to say good-bye." He smiled. "Not everyone is so lucky." I studied him in his chair, unable to stand, to wash, to pull on his pants. Lucky? Did he really say lucky? *** During a break, when Morrie had to use the bathroom, I leafed through the Boston newspaper that sat near his chair. There was a story about a small timber town where two teenage girls tortured and killed a seventy-three-year-old man who had befriended them, then threw a party in his trailer home and showed off the corpse. There was another story, about the upcoming trial of a straight man who killed a gay man after the latter had gone on a TV talk show and said he had a crush on him. I put the paper away. Morrie was rolled back in smiling, as always-and Connie went to lift him from the wheelchair to the recliner. You want me to do that? I asked. There was a momentary silence, and I'm not even sure why I offered, but Morrie looked at Connie and said, "Can you show him how to do it?"

"Sure," Connie said. Following her instructions, I leaned over, locked my forearms under Morrie's armpits, and hooked him toward me, as if lifting a large log from underneath. Then I straightened up, hoisting him as I rose. Normally, when you lift someone, you expect their arms to tighten around your grip, but Morrie could not do this. He was mostly dead weight, and I felt his head bounce softly on my shoulder and his body sag against me like a big damp loaf. "Ahhhn," he softly groaned. I gotcha, I gotcha, I said. Holding him like that moved me in a way I cannot describe, except to say I felt the seeds of death inside his shriveling frame, and as I laid him in his chair, adjusting his head on the pillows, I had the coldest realization that our time was running out. And I had to do something.

It is my junior year, 1978, when disco and Rocky movies are the cultural rage. We are in an unusual sociology class at Brandeis, something Morrie calls "Group Process." Each week we study the ways in which the students in the group interact with one another, how they respond to anger, jealousy, attention. We are human lab rats. More often than not, someone ends up crying. I refer to it as the "touchy -feely" course. Morrie says I should be more open-minded. On this day, Morrie says he has an exercise for us to try. We are to stand, facing away from our classmates, and fall backward, relying on another student to catch us. Most of us are uncomfortable with this, and we cannot let go for more than a few inches before stopping ourselves. We laugh in embarrassment. Finally, one student, a thin, quiet, dark-haired girl whom I notice almost always wears bulky white fisherman sweaters, crosses her arms over her chest, closes her eyes, leans back, and does not flinch, like one of those Lipton tea commercials where the model splashes into the pool. For a moment, I am sure she is going to thump on the floor. At the last instant, her assigned partner grabs her head and shoulders and yanks her up harshly. "Whoa!" several students yell. Some clap. Morrie _finally smiles. "You see," he says to the girl, "you closed your eyes. That was the difference. Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them, too-even when you're in the dark. Even when you're falling. "

The Third Tuesday We Talk About Regrets The next Tuesday, I arrived with the normal bags of food-pasta with corn, potato salad, apple cobbler--and something else: a Sony tape recorder. I want to remember what we talk about, I told Morrie. I want to have your voice so I can listen to it . . . later. "When I'm dead." Don't say that. He laughed. "Mitch, I'm going to die. And sooner, not later." He regarded the new machine. "So big," he said. I felt intrusive, as reporters often do, and I began to think that a tape machine between two people who were supposedly friends was a foreign object, an artificial ear. With all the people clamoring for his time, perhaps I was trying to take too much away from these Tuesdays. Listen, I said, picking up the recorder. We don't have to use this. If it makes you uncomfortable He stopped me, wagged a finger, then hooked his glasses off his nose, letting them dangle on the 23

string around his neck. He looked me square in the eye. "Put it down," he said. I put it down. "Mitch," he continued, softly now, "you don't understand. I want to tell you about my life. I want to tell you before I can't tell you anymore." His voice dropped to a whisper. "I want someone to hear my story. Will you?" I nodded. We sat quietly for a moment. "So," he said, "is it turned on?" *** Now, the truth is, that tape recorder was more than nostalgia. I was losing Morrie, we were all losing Morrie--his family, his friends, his ex-students, his fellow professors, his pals from the political discussion groups that he loved so much, his former dance partners, all of us. And I suppose tapes, like photographs and videos, are a desperate attempt to steal something from death's suitcase. But it was also becoming clear to me -through his courage, his humor, his patience, and his openness-that Morrie was looking at life from some very different place than anyone else I knew. A healthier place. A more sensible place. And he was about to die. If some mystical clarity of thought came when you looked death in the eye, then I knew Morrie wanted to share it. And I wanted to remember it for as long as I could. The first time I saw Morrie on "Nightline," 1 wondered what regrets he had once he knew his death was imminent. Did he lament lost friends? Would he have done much differently? Selfishly, I wondered if I were in his shoes, would I be consumed with sad thoughts of all that I had missed? Would I regret the secrets I had kept hidden? When I mentioned this to Morrie, he nodded. "It's what everyone worries about, isn't it? What if today were my last day on earth?" He studied my face, and perhaps he saw an ambivalence about my own choices. I had this vision of me keeling over at my desk one day, halfway through a story, my editors snatching the copy even as the medics carried my body away. "Mitch?" Morrie said. I shook my head and said nothing. But Morrie picked up on my hesitation. "Mitch," he said, "the culture doesn't encourage you to think about such things until you're about to die. We're so wrapped up with egotistical things, career, family, having enough money, meeting the mortgage, getting a new car, fixing the radiator when it breaks-we're involved in trillions of little acts just to keep going. So we don't get into the habit of standing back and looking at our lives and saying, Is this all? Is this all I want? Is something missing?" He paused. "You need someone to probe you in that direction. It won't just happen automatically." I knew what he was saying. We all need teachers in our lives. And mine was sitting in front of me. *** Fine, I figured. If I was to be the student, then I would be as good a student as I could be. On the plane ride home that day, I made a small list on a yellow legal pad, issues and questions that we all grapple with, from happiness to aging to having children to death. Of course, there were a million self-help books on these subjects, and plenty of cable TV shows, and $9oper-hour consultation sessions. America had become a Persian bazaar of self-help. But there still seemed to be no clear answers. Do you take care of others or take care of your "inner child"? Return to traditional values or reject tradition as useless? Seek success or seek simplicity?

Just Say No or just Do It? All I knew was this: Morrie, my old professor, wasn't in the self-help business. He was standing on the tracks, listening to death's locomotive whistle, and he was very clear about the important things in life. I wanted that clarity. Every confused and tortured soul I knew wanted that clarity. "Ask me anything," Morrie always said. So I wrote this list:  Death  Fear  Aging  Greed  Marriage  Family  Society  Forgiveness  A meaningful life The list was in my bag when I returned to West Newton for the fourth time, a Tuesday in late August when the air-conditioning at the Logan Airport terminal was not working, and people fanned themselves and wiped sweat angrily from their foreheads, and every face I saw looked ready to kill somebody. *** By the start of my senior year, I have taken so many sociology classes, I am only a few credits shy of a degree. Morrie suggests I try an honors thesis. Me? I ask. What would I write about? "What interests you?" he says. We bat it back and forth, until we finally settle on, of all things, sports. I begin a year-long project on how football in America has become ritualistic, almost a religion, an opiate for the masses. I have no idea that this is training for my future career. I only know it gives me another once-a-week session with Morrie. And, with his help, by spring I have a 112 page thesis, researched, footnoted, documented, and neatly bound in black leather. I show it to Morrie with the pride of a Little Leaguer rounding the bases on his first home run. "Congratulations," Morrie says. I grin as he leafs through it, and I glance around his office. The shelves of books, the hardwood floor, the throw rug, the couch. I think to myself that I have sat just about everywhere there is to sit in this room. "I don't know, Mitch," Morrie muses, adjusting his glasses as he reads, "with work like this, we may have to get you back here for grad school." Yeah, right, I say. I snicker, but the idea is momentarily appealing. Part of me is scared of leaving school. Part of me wants to go desperately. Tension of opposites. I watch Morrie as he reads my thesis, and wonder what the big world will be like out there.

The Audiovisual, Part Two The "Nightline" show had done a follow-up story on Morrie partly becau°e the reception for the first show had been so strong. This time, when the cameramen and producers came through the door, they already felt like family. And Koppel himself was noticeably warmer. There was no

feeling-out process, no interview before the interview. As warm-up, Koppel and Morrie exchanged stories about their childhood backgrounds: Koppel spoke of growing up in England, and Morrie spoke of growing up in the Bronx. Morrie wore a longsleeved blue shirt-he was almost always chilly, even when it was ninety degrees outside-but Koppel removed his jacket and did the interview in shirt and tie. It was as if Morrie were breaking him down, one layer at a time. "You look fine," Koppel said when the tape began to roll. "That's what everybody tells me," Morrie said. "You sound fine." "That's what everybody tells me." "So how do you know things are going downhill?" Morrie sighed.. "Nobody can know it but me, Ted. But I know it." And as he spoke, it became obvious. He was not waving his hands to make a point as freely as he had in their first conversation. He had trouble pronouncing certain words-the l sound seemed to get caught in his throat. In a few more months, he might no longer speak at all. "Here's how my emotions go," Morrie told Koppel. "When I have people and friends here, I'm very up. The loving relationships maintain me. "But there are days when I am depressed. Let me not deceive you. I see certain things going and I feel a sense of dread. What am I going to do without my hands? What happens when I can't speak? Swallowing, I don't care so much about-so they feed me through a tube, so what? But my voice? My hands? They're such an essential part of me. I talk with my voice. I gesture with my hands. This is how I give to people." "How will you give when you can no longer speak?" Koppel asked. Morrie shrugged. "Maybe I'll have everyone ask me yes or no questions." It was such a simple answer that Koppel had to smile. He asked Morrie about silence. He mentioned a dear friend Morrie had, Maurie Stein, who had first sent Morrie's aphorisms to the Boston Globe. They had been together at Brandeis since the early sixties. Now Stein was going deaf. Koppel imagined the two men together one day, one unable to speak, the other unable to hear. What would that be like? "We will hold hands," Morrie said. "And there'll be a lot of love passing between us. Ted, we've had thirty-five years of friendship. You don't need speech or hearing to feel that." Before the show ended, Morrie read Koppel one of the letters he'd received. Since the first "Nightline" program, there had been a great deal of mail. One particular letter came from a schoolteacher in Pennsylvania who taught a special class of nine children; every child in the class had suffered the death of a parent. "Here's what I sent her back," Morrie told Koppel, perching his glasses gingerly on his nose and ears. " `Dear Barbara . . . I was very moved by your letter. I feel the work you have done with the children who have lost a parent is very important. I also lost a parent at an early age . . .' " Suddenly, with the cameras still humming, Morrie adjusted the glasses. He stopped, bit his lip, and began to choke up. Tears fell down his nose. " `I lost my mother when I was a child . . . and it was quite a blow to me . . . I wish I'd had a group like yours where I would have been able to talk about my sorrows. I would have joined your group because . . . " His voice cracked. " `. . . because I was so lonely . . . " "Morrie," Koppel said, "that was seventy years ago your mother died. The pain still goes on?" "You bet," Morrie whispered.

The Professor He was eight years old. A telegram came from the hospital, and since his father, a Russian immigrant, could not read English, Morrie had to break the news, reading his mother's death notice like a student in front of the class. "We regret to inform you . . ." he began. On the morning of the funeral, Morrie's relatives came down the steps of his tenement building on the poor Lower East Side of Manhattan. The men wore dark suits, the women wore veils. The kids in the neighborhood were going off to school, and as they passed, Morrie looked down, ashamed that his classmates would see him this way. One of his aunts, a heavyset woman, grabbed Morrie and began to wail: "What will you do without your mother? What will become of you?" Morrie burst into tears. His classmates ran away. At the cemetery, Morrie watched as they shoveled dirt into his mother's grave. He tried to recall the tender moments they had shared when she was alive. She had operated a candy store until she got sick, after which she mostly slept or sat by the window, looking frail and weak. Sometimes she would yell out for her son to get her some medicine, and young Morrie, playing stickball in the street, would pretend he did not hear her. In his mind he believed he could make the illness go away by ignoring it. How else can a child confront death? Morrie's father, whom everyone called Charlie, had come to America to escape the Russian Army. He worked in the fur business, but was constantly out of a job. Uneducated and barely able to speak English, he was terribly poor, and the family was on public assistance much of the time. Their apartment was a dark, cramped, depressing place behind the candy store. They had no luxuries. No car. Sometimes, to make money, Morrie and his younger brother, David, would wash porch steps together for a nickel. After their mother's death, the two boys were sent off to a small hotel in the Connecticut woods where several families shared a large cabin and a communal kitchen. The fresh air might be good for the children, the relatives thought. Morrie and David had never seen so much greenery, and they ran and played in the fields. One night after dinner, they went for a walk and it began to rain. Rather than come inside, they splashed around for hours. The next morning, when they awoke, Morrie hopped out of bed. "Come on," he said to his brother. "Get up." "I can't." "What do you mean?" David's face was panicked. "I can't . . . move." He had polio. Of course, the rain did not cause this. But a child Morrie's age could not understand that. For a long time-as his brother was taken back and forth to a special medical home and was forced to wear braces on his legs, which left him limping-Morrie felt responsible. So in the mornings, he went to synagogue-by himself, because his father was not a religious man- and he stood among the swaying men in their long black coats and he asked God to take care of his dead mother and his sick brother. And in the afternoons, he stood at the bottom of the subway steps and hawked magazines, turning whatever money he made over to his family to buy food. In the evenings, he watched his father eat in silence, hoping for-but never getting--a show of affection, communication, warmth. 27

At nine years old, he felt as if the weight of a mountain were on his shoulders. But a saving embrace came into Morrie's life the following year: his new stepmother, Eva. She was a short Romanian immigrant with plain features, curly brown hair, and the energy of two women. She had a glow that warmed the otherwise murky atmosphere his father created. She talked when her new husband was silent, she sang songs to the children at night. Morrie took comfort in her soothing voice, her school lessons, her strong character. When his brother returned from the medical home, still wearing leg braces from the polio, the two of them shared a rollaway bed in the kitchen of their apartment, and Eva would kiss them good-night. Morrie waited on those kisses like a puppy waits on milk, and he felt, deep down, that he had a mother again. There was no escaping their poverty, however. They lived now in the Bronx, in a one-bedroom apartment in a redbrick building on Tremont Avenue, next to an Italian beer garden where the old men played boccie on summer evenings. Because of the Depression, Morrie's father found even less work in the fur business. Sometimes when the family sat at the dinner table, all Eva could put out was bread. "What else is there?" David would ask. "Nothing else," she would answer. When she tucked Morrie and David into bed, she would sing to them in Yiddish. Even the songs were sad and poor. There was one about a girl trying to sell her cigarettes: Please buy my cigarettes. They are dry, not wet by rain. Take pity on me, take pity on me. Still, despite their circumstances, Morrie was taught to love and to care. And to learn. Eva would accept nothing less than excellence in school, because she saw education as the only antidote to their poverty. She herself went to night school to improve her English. Morrie's love for education was hatched in her arms. He studied at night, by the lamp at the kitchen table. And in the mornings he would go to synagogue to say Yizkor-the memorial prayer for the dead-for his mother. He did this to keep her memory alive. Incredibly, Morrie had been told by his father never to talk about her. Charlie wanted young David to think Eva was his natural mother. It was a terrible burden to Morrie. For years, the only evidence Morrie had of his mother was the telegram announcing her death. He had hidden it the day it arrived. He would keep it the rest of his life. When Morrie was a teenager, his father took him to a fur factory where he worked. This was during the Depression. The idea was to get Morrie a job. He entered the factory, and immediately felt as if the walls had closed in around him. The room was dark and hot, the windows covered with filth, and the machines were packed tightly together, churning like train wheels. The fur hairs were flying, creating a thickened air, and the workers, sewing the pelts together, were bent over their needles as the boss marched up and down the rows, screaming for them to go faster. Morrie could barely breathe. He stood next to his father, frozen with fear, hoping the boss wouldn't scream at him, too. During lunch break, his father took Morrie to the boss and pushed him in front of him, asking if there was any work for his son. But there was barely enough work for the adult laborers, and no one was giving it up. This, for Morrie, was a blessing. He hated the place. He made another vow that he kept to the end of his life: he would never do any work that exploited someone else, and he would never allow himself to make money off the sweat of others.

"What will you do?" Eva would ask him. "I don't know," he would say. He ruled out law, because he didn't like lawyers, and he ruled out medicine, because he couldn't take the sight of blood. "What will you do?" It was only through default that the best professor I ever had became a teacher. "A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops. " -HENRY ADAMS

The Fourth Tuesday We Talk About Death "Let's begin with this idea," Morrie said. "Everyone knows they're going to die, but nobody believes it." He was in a businesslike mood this Tuesday. The subject was death, the first item on my list. Before I arrived, Morrie had scribbled a few notes on small white pieces of paper so that he wouldn't forget. His shaky handwriting was now indecipherable to everyone but him. It was almost Labor Day, and through the office window I could see the spinach-colored hedges of the backyard and hear the yells of children playing down the street, their last week of freedom before school began. Back in Detroit, the newspaper strikers were gearing up for a huge holiday demonstration, to show the solidarity of unions against management. On the plane ride in, I had read about a woman who had shot her husband and two daughters as they lay sleeping, claiming she was protecting them from "the bad people." In California, the lawyers in the O. J. Simpson trial were becoming huge celebrities. Here in Morrie's office, life went on one precious day at a time. Now we sat together, a few feet from the newest addition to the house: an oxygen machine. It was small and portable, about knee- high. On some nights, when he couldn't get enough air to swallow, Morrie attached the long plastic tubing to his nose, clamping on his nostrils like a leech. I hated the idea of Morrie connected to a machine of any kind, and I tried not to look at it as Morrie spoke. "Everyone knows they're going to die," he said again, "but nobody believes it. If we did, we would do things differently." So we kid ourselves about death, I said. "Yes. But there's a better approach. To know you're going to die, and to be prepared for it at any time. That's better. That way you can actually be more involved in your life while you're living." How can you ever be prepared to die? "Do what the Buddhists do. Every day, have a little bird on your shoulder that asks, `Is today the day? Am I ready? Am I doing all I need to do? Am I being the person I want to be?' " He turned his head to his shoulder as if the bird were there now. "Is today the day I die?" he said. Morrie borrowed freely from all religions. He was born Jewish, but became an agnostic when he was a teenager, partly because of all that had happened to him as a child. He enjoyed some of the philosophies of Buddhism and Christianity, and he still felt at home, culturally, in Judaism. He was a religious mutt, which made him even more open to the students he taught over the years. And the things he was saying in his final months on earth seemed to transcend all religious differences. Death has a way of doing that. "The truth is, Mitch," he said, "once you learn how to die, you learn how to live." I nodded. "I'm going to say it again," he said. "Once you learn how to die, you learn how to live." He smiled, 29

and I realized what he was doing. He was making sure I absorbed this point, without embarrassing me by asking. It was part of what made him a good teacher. Did you think much about death before you got sick, I asked. "No." Morrie smiled. "I was like everyone else. I once told a friend of mine, in a moment of exuberance, `I'm gonna be the healthiest old man you ever met!' " How old were you? "In my sixties." So you were optimistic. "Why not? Like I said, no one really believes they're going to die." But everyone knows someone who has died, I said. Why is it so hard to think about dying? "Because," Morrie continued, "most of us all walk around as if we're sleepwalking. We really don't experience the world fully, because we're half-asleep, doing things we automatically think we have to do." And facing death changes all that? "Oh, yes. You strip away all that stuff and you focus on the essentials. When you realize you are going to die, you see everything much differently. He sighed. "Learn how to die, and you learn how to live." I noticed that he quivered now when he moved his hands. His glasses hung around his neck, and when he lifted them to his eyes, they slid around his temples, as if he were trying to put them on someone else in the dark. I reached over to help guide them onto his ears. "Thank you," Morrie whispered. He smiled when my hand brushed up against his head. The slightest human contact was immediate joy. "Mitch. Can I tell you something?" Of course, I said. "You might not like it." Why not? "Well, the truth is, if you really listen to that bird on your shoulder, if you accept that you can die at any time then you might not be as ambitious as you are." I forced a small grin. "The things you spend so much time on-all this work you do-might not seem as important. You might have to make room for some more spiritual things." Spiritual things? "You hate that word, don't you? `Spiritual.' You think it's touchy-feely stuff." Well, I said. He tried to wink, a bad try, and I broke down and laughed. "Mitch," he said, laughing along, "even I don't know what `spiritual development' really means. But I do know we're deficient in some way. We are too involved in materialistic things, and they don't satisfy us. The loving relationships we have, the universe around us, we take these things for granted." He nodded toward the window with the sunshine streaming in. "You see that? You can go out there, outside, anytime. You can run up and down the block and go crazy. I can't do that. I can't go out. I can't run. I can't be out there without fear of getting sick. But you know what? I appreciate that window more than you do." Appreciate it? "Yes. I look out that window every day. I notice the change in the trees, how strong the wind is blowing. It's as if I can see time actually passing through that windowpane. Because I know my time is almost done, I am drawn to nature like I'm seeing it for the first time." He stopped, and for a moment we both just looked out the window. I tried to see what he saw. I tried to see time and seasons, my life passing in slow motion. Morrie dropped his head slightly and curled it toward his shoulder.

"Is it today, little bird?" he asked. "Is it today?" *** Letters from around the world kept coming to Morrie, thanks to the "Nightline" appearances. He would sit, when he was up to it, and dictate the responses to friends and family who gathered for their letter- writing sessions. One Sunday when his sons, Rob and Jon, were home, they all gathered in the living room. Morrie sat in his wheelchair, his skinny legs under a blanket. When he got cold, one of his helpers draped a nylon jacket over his shoulders. "What's the first letter?" Morrie said. A colleague read a note from a woman named Nancy, who had lost her mother to ALS. She wrote to say how much she had suffered through the loss and how she knew that Morrie must be suffering, too. "All right," Morrie said when the reading was complete. He shut his eyes. "Let's start by saying, `Dear Nancy, you touched me very much with your story about your mother. And I understand what you went through. There is sadness and suffering on both parts. Grieving has been good for me, and I hope it has been good for you also.' " "You might want to change that last line," Rob said. Morrie thought for a second, then said, "You're right. How about `I hope you can find the healing power in grieving.' Is that better?" Rob nodded. "Add `thank you, Morrie,' " Morrie said. Another letter was read from a woman named Jane, who was thanking him for his inspiration on the "Nightline" program. She referred to him as a prophet. "That's a very high compliment," said a colleague. "A prophet." Morrie made a face. He obviously didn't agree with the assessment. "Let's thank her for her high praise. And tell her I'm glad my words meant something to her. "And don't forget to sign `Thank you, Morrie.' " There was a letter from a man in England who had lost his mother and asked Morrie to help him contact her through the spiritual world. There was a letter from a couple who wanted to drive to Boston to meet him. There was a long letter from a former graduate student who wrote about her life after the university. It told of a murder-suicide and three stillborn births. It told of a mother who died from ALS. It expressed fear that she, the daughter, would also contract the disease. It went on and on. Two pages. Three pages. Four pages. Morrie sat through the long, grim tale. When it was finally finished, he said softly, "Well, what do we answer?" The group was quiet. Finally, Rob said, "How about, `Thanks for your long letter?' " Everyone laughed. Morrie looked at his son and beamed.

The newspaper near his chair has a photo of a Boston baseball player who is smiling after pitching a shutout. Of all the diseases, I think to myself, Morrie gets one named after an athlete. You remember Lou Gehrig, I ask? "I remember him in the stadium, saying good-bye." So you remember the famous line. "Which one?" Come on. Lou Gehrig. "Pride of the Yankees"? The speech that echoes over the loudspeakers? "Remind me," Morrie says. "Do the speech." Through the open window I hear the sound of a garbage truck. Although it is hot, Morrie is wearing

long sleeves, with a blanket over his legs, his skin pale. The disease owns him. I raise my voice and do the Gehrig imitation, where the words bounce off the stadium walls: "Too- dayyy . . . I feeel like . . . the luckiest maaaan . . . on the face of the earth . Morrie closes his eyes and nods slowly. "Yeah. Well. I didn't say that."

The Fifth Tuesday We Talk About Family It was the first week in September, back-to school week, and after thirty-five consecutive autumns, my old professor did not have a class waiting for him on a college campus. Boston was teeming with students, double-parked on side streets, unloading trunks. And here was Morrie in his study. It seemed wrong, like those football players who finally retire and have to face that first Sunday at home, watching on TV, thinking, I could still do that. I have learned from dealing with those players that it is best to leave them alone when their old seasons come around. Don't say anything. But then, I didn't need to remind Morrie of his dwindling time. For our taped conversations, we had switched from handheld microphones-because it was too difficult now for Morrie to hold anything that long-to the lavaliere kind popular with TV newspeople. You can clip these onto a collar or lapel. Of course, since Morrie only wore soft cotton shirts that hung loosely on his ever-shrinking frame, the microphone sagged and flopped, and I had to reach over and adjust it frequently. Morrie seemed to enjoy this because it brought me close to him, in hugging range, and his need for physical affection was stronger than ever. When I leaned in, I heard his wheezing breath and his weak coughing, and he smacked his lips softly before he swallowed. "Well, my friend," he said, "what are we talking about today?" How about family? "Family." He mulled it over for a moment. "Well, you see mine, all around me." He nodded to photos on his bookshelves, of Morrie as a child with his grandmother; Morrie as a young man with his brother, David; Morrie with his wife, Charlotte; Morrie with his two sons, Rob, a journalist in Tokyo, and ion, a computer expert in Boston. "I think, in light of what we've been talking about all these weeks, family becomes even more important," he said. "The fact is, there is no foundation, no secure ground, upon which people may stand today if it isn't the family. It's become quite clear to me as I've been sick. If you don't have the support and love and caring and concern that you get from a family, you don't have much at all. Love is so supremely important. As our great poet Auden said, `Love each other or perish.' " "Love each other or perish." I wrote it down. Auden said that? "Love each other or perish," Morrie said. "It's good, no? And it's so true. Without love, we are birds with broken wings. "Say I was divorced, or living alone, or had no children. This disease-what I'm going through-would be so much harder. I'm not sure I could do it. Sure, people would come visit, friends, associates, but it's not the same as having someone who will not leave. It's not the same as having someone whom you know has an eye on you, is watching you the whole time. "This is part of what a family is about, not just love, but letting others know there's someone who is watching out for them. It's what I missed so much when my mother died-what I call your `spiritual security'- knowing that your family will be there watching out for you. Nothing else will give you that. Not money. Not fame." He shot me a look. 32

"Not work," he added. Raising a family was one of those issues on my little list-things you want to get right before it's too late. I told Morrie about my generation's dilemma with having children, how we often saw them as tying us down, making us into these "parent" things that we did not want to be. I admitted to some of these emotions myself. Yet when I looked at Morrie, I wondered if I were in his shoes, about to die, and I had no family, no children, would the emptiness be unbearable? He had raised his two sons to be loving and caring, and like Morrie, they were not shy with their affection. Had he so desired, they would have stopped what they were doing to be with their father every minute of his final months. But that was not what he wanted. "Do not stop your lives," he told them. "Otherwise, this disease will have ruined three of us instead of one." In this way, even as he was dying, he showed respect for his children's worlds. Little wonder that when they sat with him, there was a waterfall of affection, lots of kisses and jokes and crouching by the side of the bed, holding hands. "Whenever people ask me about having children or not having children, I never tell them what to do," Morrie said now, looking at a photo of his oldest son. "I simply say, `There is no experience like having children.' That's all. There is no substitute for it. You cannot do it with a friend. You cannot do it with a lover. If you want the experience of having complete responsibility for another human being, and to learn how to love and bond in the deepest way, then you should have children." So you would do it again? I asked. I glanced at the photo. Rob was kissing Morrie on the forehead, and Morrie was laughing with his eyes closed. "Would I do it again?" he said to me, looking surprised. "Mitch, I would not have missed that experience for anything. Even though…" He swallowed and put the picture in his lap. "Even though there is a painful price to pay," he said. Because you'll be leaving them. "Because I'll be leaving them soon." He pulled his lips together, closed his eyes, and I watched the first teardrop fall down the side of his cheek. *** "And now," he whispered, "you talk." Me? "Your family. I know about your parents. I met them, years ago, at graduation. You have a sister, too, right?" Yes, I said. "Older, yes?" Older. "And one brother, right?" I nodded. "Younger?" Younger. "Like me," Morrie said. "I have a younger brother." Like you, I said. "He also came to your graduation, didn't he?" I blinked, and in my mind I saw us all there, sixteen years earlier, the hot sun, the blue robes, squinting as we put our arms around each other and posed for Instamatic photos, someone saying, "One, two, threeee . . . " "What is it?" Morrie said, noticing my sudden quiet. "What's on your mind?"

Nothing, I said, changing the subject. *** The truth is, I do indeed have a brother, a blondhaired, hazel-eyed, two-years-younger brother, who looks so unlike me or my dark-haired sister that we used to tease him by claiming strangers had left him as a baby on our doorstep. "And one day," we'd say, "they're coming back to get you." He cried when we said this, but we said it just the same. He grew up the way many youngest children grow up, pampered, adored, and inwardly tortured. He dreamed of being an actor or a singer; he reenacted TV shows at the dinner table, playing every part, his bright smile practically jumping through his lips. I was the good student, he was the bad; I was obedient, he broke the rules; I stayed away from drugs and alcohol, he tried everything you could ingest. He moved to Europe not long after high school, preferring the more casual lifestyle he found there. Yet he remained the family favorite. When he visited home, in his wild and funny presence, I often felt stiff and conservative. As different as we were, I reasoned that our fates would shoot in opposite directions once we hit adulthood. I was right in all ways but one. From the day my uncle died, I believed that I would suffer a similar death, an untimely disease that would take me out. So I worked at a feverish pace, and I braced myself for cancer. I could feel its breath. I knew it was coming. I waited for it the way a condemned man waits for the executioner. And I was right. It came. But it missed me. It struck my brother. The same type of cancer as my uncle. The pancreas. A rare form. And so the youngest of our family, with the blond hair and the hazel eyes, had the chemotherapy and the radiation. His hair fell out, his face went gaunt as a skeleton. It's supposed to be me, I thought. But my brother was not me, and he was not my uncle. He was a fighter, and had been since his youngest days, when we wrestled in the basement and he actually bit through my shoe until I screamed in pain and let him go. And so he fought back. He battled the disease in Spain, where he lived, with the aid of an experimental drug that was not-and still is not-available in the United States. He flew all over Europe for treatments. After five years of treatment, the drug appeared to chase the cancer into remission. That was the good news. The bad news was, my brother did not want me around-not me, nor anyone in the family. Much as we tried to call and visit, he held us at bay, insisting this fight was something he needed to do by himself. Months would pass without a word from him. Messages on his answering machine would go without reply. I was ripped with guilt for what I felt I should be doing for him and fuelled with anger for his denying us the right to do it. So once again, I dove into work. I worked because I could control it. I worked because work was sensible and responsive. And each time I would call my brother's apartment in Spain and get the answering machine-him speaking in Spanish, another sign of how far apart we had drifted-I would hang up and work some more. Perhaps this is one reason I was drawn to Morrie. He let me be where my brother would not. Looking back, perhaps Morrie knew this all along.

It is a winter in my childhood, on a snow packed hill in our suburban neighborhood. My brother and I are on the sled, him on top, me on the bottom. I feel his chin on my shoulder and his feet on the backs of my knees. The sled rumbles on icy patches beneath us. We pick up speed as we descend the hill.

"CAR!" someone yells. We see it coming, down the street to our left. We scream and try to steer away, but the runners do not move. The driver slams his horn and hits his brakes, and we do what all kids do: we jump off. In our hooded parkas, we roll like logs down the cold, wet snow, thinking the next thing to touch us will be the hard rubber of a car tire. We are yelling "AHHHHHH" and we are tingling with fear, turning over and over, the world upside down, right side up, upside down. And then, nothing. We stop rolling and catch our breath and wipe the dripping snow from our faces. The driver turns down the street, wagging his finger. We are safe. Our sled has thudded quietly into a snowbank, and our friends are slapping us now, saying "Cool" and "You could have died." I grin at my brother, and we are united by childish pride. That wasn't so hard, we think, and we are ready to take on death again.

The Sixth Tuesday We Talk About Emotions I walked past the mountain laurels and the Japanese maple, up the bluestone steps of Morrie's house. The white rain gutter hung like a lid over the doorway. I rang the bell and was greeted not by Connie but by Morrie's wife, Charlotte, a beautiful gray-haired woman who spoke in a lilting voice. She was not often at home when I came by-she continued working at MIT, as Morrie wished-and I was surprised this morning to see her. "Morrie's having a bit of a hard time today," she said. She stared over my shoulder for a moment, then moved toward the kitchen. I'm sorry, I said. "No, no, he'll be happy to see you," she said quickly. "Sure . . ." She stopped in the middle of the sentence, turning her head slightly, listening for something. Then she continued. "I'm sure . . . he'll feel better when he knows you're here." I lifted up the bags from the market-my normal food supply, I said jokingly-and she seemed to smile and fret at the same time. "There's already so much food. He hasn't eaten any from last time." This took me by surprise. He hasn't eaten any, I asked? She opened the refrigerator and I saw familiar containers of chicken salad, vermicelli, vegetables, stuffed squash, all things I had brought for Morrie. She opened the freezer and there was even more. "Morrie can't eat most of this food. It's too hard for him to swallow. He has to eat soft things and liquid drinks now." But he never said anything, I said. Charlotte smiled. "He doesn't want to hurt your feelings." It wouldn't have hurt my feelings. I just wanted to help in some way. I mean, I just wanted to bring him something . . . "You are bringing him something. He looks forward to your visits. He talks about having to do this project with you, how he has to concentrate and put the time aside. I think it's giving him a good sense of purpose . . ." Again, she gave that faraway look, the tuning-in-something-from-somewhere-else. I knew Morrie's nights were becoming difficult, that he didn't sleep through them, and that meant Charlotte often did not sleep through them either. Sometimes Morrie would lie awake coughing for hours-it would take that long to get the phlegm from his throat. There were health care workers now staying through the night and all those visitors during the day, former students, fellow professors, meditation teachers, tramping in and out of the house. On some days, Morrie had a half a dozen visitors, and they were often there when 35

Charlotte returned from work. She handled it with patience, even though all these outsiders were soaking up her precious minutes with Morrie. ". . . a sense of purpose," she continued. "Yes. That's good, you know." "I hope so," I said. I helped put the new food inside the refrigerator. The kitchen counter had all kinds of notes, messages, information, medical instructions. The table held more pill bottles than ever-Selestone for his asthma, Ativan to help him sleep, naproxen for infections-along with a powdered milk mix and laxatives. From down the hall, we heard the sound of a door open. "Maybe he's available now . . . let me go check." Charlotte glanced again at my food and I felt suddenly ashamed. All these reminders of things Morrie would never enjoy. *** The small horrors of his illness were growing, and when I finally sat down with Morrie, he was coughing more than usual, a dry, dusty cough that shook his chest and made his head jerk forward. After one violent surge, he stopped, closed his eyes, and took a breath. I sat quietly because I thought he was recovering from his exertion. "Is the tape on?" he said suddenly, his eyes still closed. Yes, yes, I quickly said, pressing down the play and record buttons. "What I'm doing now," he continued, his eyes still closed, "is detaching myself from the experience." Detaching yourself? "Yes. Detaching myself. And this is important-not just for someone like me, who is dying, but for someone like you, who is perfectly healthy. Learn to detach." He opened his eyes. He exhaled. "You know what the Buddhists say? Don't cling to things, because everything is impermanent." But wait, I said. Aren't you always talking about experiencing life? All the good emotions, all the bad ones? "Yes. " Well, how can you do that if you're detached? "Ah. You're thinking, Mitch. But detachment doesn't mean you don't let the experience penetrate you. On the contrary, you let it penetrate you fully. That's how you are able to leave it." I'm lost. "Take any emotion-love for a woman, or grief for a loved one, or what I'm going through, fear and pain from a deadly illness. If you hold back on the emotions-if you don't allow yourself to go all the way through them-you can never get to being detached, you're too busy being afraid. You're afraid of the pain, you're afraid of the grief. You're afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails. "But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, `All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment.' " Morrie stopped and looked me over, perhaps to make sure I was getting this right. "I know you think this is just about dying," he said, "but it's like I keep telling you. When you learn how to die, you learn how to live." Morrie talked about his most fearful moments, when he felt his chest locked in heaving surges or when he wasn't sure where his next breath would come from. These were horrifying times, he said, and his first emotions were horror, fear, anxiety. But once he recognized the feel of those emotions,

their texture, their moisture, the shiver down the back, the quick flash of heat that crosses your brain-then he was able to say, "Okay. This is fear. Step away from it. Step away." I thought about how often this was needed in everyday life. How we feel lonely, sometimes to the point of tears, but we don't let those tears come because we are not supposed to cry. Or how we feel a surge of love for a partner but we don't say anything because we're frozen with the fear of what those words might do to the relationship. Morrie's approach was exactly the opposite. Turn on the faucet. Wash yourself with the emotion. It won't hurt you. It will only help. If you let the fear inside, if you pull it on like a familiar shirt, then you can say to yourself, "All right, it's just fear, I don't have to let it control me. I see it for what it is." Same for loneliness: you let go, let the tears flow, feel it completely-but eventually be able to say, "All right, that was my moment with loneliness. I'm not afraid of feeling lonely, but now I'm going to put that loneliness aside and know that there are other emotions in the world, and I'm going to experience them as well." "Detach," Morrie said again. He closed his eyes, then coughed. Then he coughed again. Then he coughed again, more loudly. Suddenly, he was half-choking, the congestion in his lungs seemingly teasing him, jumping halfway up, then dropping back down, stealing his breath. He was gagging, then hacking violently, and he shook his hands in front of him-with his eyes closed, shaking his hands, he appeared almost possessed-and I felt my forehead break into a sweat. I instinctively pulled him forward and slapped the back of his shoulders, and he pushed a tissue to his mouth and spit out a wad of phlegm. The coughing stopped, and Morrie dropped back into the foam pillows and sucked in air.

"You okay? You all right?" I said, trying to hide my fear. "I'm . . . okay," Morrie whispered, raising a shaky finger. "Just . . . wait a minute." We sat there quietly until his breathing returned to normal. I felt the perspiration on my scalp. He asked me to close the window, the breeze was making him cold. I didn't mention that it was eighty degrees outside. Finally, in a whisper, he said, "I know how I want to die." I waited in silence. "I want to die serenely. Peacefully. Not like what just happened. "And this is where detachment comes in. If I die in the middle of a coughing spell like I just had, I need to be able to detach from the horror, I need to say, `This is my moment.' "I don't want to leave the world in a state of fright. I want to know what's happening, accept it, get to a peaceful place, and let go. Do you understand?" I nodded. Don't let go yet, I added quickly. Morrie forced a smile. "No. Not yet. We still have work to do."

Do you believe in reincarnation? I ask. "Perhaps. " What would you come back as? `If I had my choice, a gazelle." " A gazelle?" "Yes. So graceful. So fast." " A gazelle? Morrie smiles at me. "You think that's strange?" I study his shrunken frame, the loose clothes, the sockswrapped feet that rest stiffly on foam rubber cushions, unable to move, like a prisoner in leg irons. I picture a gazelle racing across the desert. No, I say. I don't think that's strange at all.

The Professor, Part Two The Morrie I knew, the Morrie so many others knew, would not have been the man he was without the years he spent working at a mental hospital just outside Washington, D.C., a place with the deceptively peaceful name of Chestnut Lodge. It was one of Morrie's first jobs after plowing through a master's degree and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Having rejected medicine, law, and business, Morrie had decided the research world would be a place where he could contribute without exploiting others. Morrie was given a grant to observe mental patients and record their treatments. While the idea seems common today, it was groundbreaking in the early fifties. Morrie saw patients who would scream all day. Patients who would cry all night. Patients soiling their underwear. Patients refusing to eat, having to be held down, medicated, fed intravenously. One of the patients, a middle-aged woman, came out of her room every day and lay facedown on the tile floor, stayed there for hours, as doctors and nurses stepped around her. Morrie watched in horror. He took notes, which is what he was there to do. Every day, she did the same thing: came out in the morning, lay on the floor, stayed there until the evening, talking to no one, ignored by everyone. It saddened Morrie. He began to sit on the floor with her, even lay down alongside her, trying to draw her out of her misery. Eventually, he got her to sit up, and even to return to her room. What she mostly wanted, he learned, was the same thing many people want-someone to notice she was there. Morrie worked at Chestnut Lodge for five years. Although it wasn't encouraged, he befriended some of the patients, including a woman who joked with him about how lucky she was to be there "because my husband is rich so he can afford it. Can you imagine if I had to be in one of those cheap mental hospitals?" Another woman-who would spit at everyone else took to Morrie and called him her friend. They talked each day, and the staff was at least encouraged that someone had gotten through to her. But one day she ran away, and Morrie was asked to help bring her back. They tracked her down in a nearby store, hiding in the back, and when Morrie went in, she burned an angry look at him. 38

"So you're one of them, too," she snarled. "One of who?" "My jailers." Morrie observed that most of the patients there had been rejected and ignored in their lives, made to feel that they didn't exist. They also missed compassion-something the staff ran out of quickly. And many of these patients were well-off, from rich families, so their wealth did not buy them happiness or contentment. It was a lesson he never forgot. I used to tease Morrie that he was stuck in the sixties. He would answer that the sixties weren't so bad, compared to the times we lived in now. He came to Brandeis after his work in the mental health field, just before the sixties began. Within a few years, the campus became a hotbed for cultural revolution. Drugs, sex, race, Vietnam protests. Abbie Hoffman attended Brandeis. So did Jerry Rubin and Angela Davis. Morrie had many of the "radical" students in his classes. That was partly because, instead of simply teaching, the sociology faculty got involved. It was fiercely antiwar, for example. When the professors learned that students who did not maintain a certain grade point average could lose their deferments and be drafted, they decided not to give any grades. When the administration said, "If you don't give these students grades, they will all fail," Morrie had a solution: "Let's give them all A's." And they did. Just as the sixties opened up the campus, it also opened up the staff in Morrie's department, from the jeans and sandals they now wore when working to their view of the classroom as a living, breathing place. They chose discussions over lectures, experience over theory. They sent students to the Deep South for civil rights projects and to the inner city for fieldwork. They went to Washington for protest marches, and Morrie often rode the busses with his students. On one trip, he watched with gentle amusement as women in flowing skirts and love beads put flowers in soldiers' guns, then sat on the lawn, holding hands, trying to levitate the Pentagon. "They didn't move it," he later recalled, "but it was a nice try." One time, a group of black students took over Ford Hall on the Brandeis campus, draping it in a banner that read MALCOLM X UNIVERSITY. Ford Hall had chemistry labs, and some administration officials worried that these radicals were making bombs in the basement. Morrie knew better. He saw right to the core of the problem, which was human beings wanting to feel that they mattered. The standoff lasted for weeks. And it might have gone on even longer if Morrie hadn't been walking by the building when one of the protesters recognized him as a favorite teacher and yelled for him to come in through the window. An hour later, Morrie crawled out through the window with a list of what the protesters wanted. He took the list to the university president, and the situation was diffused. Morrie always made good peace. At Brandeis, he taught classes about social psychology, mental illness and health, group process. They were light on what you'd now call "career skills" and heavy on "personal development." And because of this, business and law students today might look at Morrie as foolishly naive about his contributions. How much money did his students go on to make? How many big-time cases did they win? Then again, how many business or law students ever visit their old professors once they leave? Morrie's students did that all the time. And in his final months, they came back to him, hundreds of them, from Boston, New York, California, London, and Switzerland; from corporate offices and inner city school programs. They called. They wrote. They drove hundreds of miles for a visit, a word, a smile. "I've never had another teacher like you," they all said.

As my visits with Morrie go on, I begin to read about death_, how different cultures view the final passage. There is a tribe in the North American Arctic, for example, who believe that all things on earth have a soul that exists in a miniature form of the body that holds it-so that a deer has a tiny deer inside it, and a man 39

has a tiny man inside him. When the large being dies, that tiny form lives on. It can slide into something being born nearby, or it can go to a temporary resting place in the sky, in the belly of a great feminine spirit, where it waits until the moon can send it back to earth. Sometimes, they say, the moon is so busy with the new souls of the world that it disappears from the sky. That is why we have moonless nights. But in the end, the moon always returns, as do we all. That is what they believe.

The Seventh Tuesday We Talk About the Fear o f Aging Morrie lost his battle. Someone was now wiping his behind. He faced this with typically brave acceptance. No longer able to reach behind him when he used the commode, he informed Connie of his latest limitation. "Would you be embarrassed to do it for me?" She said no. I found it typical that he asked her first. It took some getting used to, Morrie admitted, because it was, in a way, complete surrender to the disease. The most personal and basic things had now been taken from him-going to the bathroom, wiping his nose, washing his private parts. With the exception of breathing and swallowing his food, he was dependent on others for nearly everything. I asked Morrie how he managed to stay positive through that. "Mitch, it's funny," he said. "I'm an independent person, so my inclination was to fight all of this-being helped from the car, having someone else dress me . I felt a little ashamed, because our culture tells us we should be ashamed if we can't wipe our own behind. But then I figured, Forget what the culture says. I have ignored the culture much of my life. I am not going to be ashamed. What's the big deal? "And you know what? The strangest thing." What's that? "I began to enjoy my dependency. Now I enjoy when they turn me over on my side and rub cream on my behind so I don't get sores. Or when they wipe my brow, or they massage my legs. I revel in it. I close my eyes and soak it up. And it seems very familiar to me. "It's like going back to being a child again. Someone to bathe you. Someone to lift you. Someone to wipe you. We all know how to be a child. It's inside all of us. For me, it's just remembering how to enjoy it. "The truth is, when our mothers held us, rocked us, stroked our heads-none of us ever got enough of that. We all yearn in some way to return to those days when we were completely taken care of-unconditional love, unconditional attention. Most of us didn't get enough. "I know I didn't." I looked at Morrie and I suddenly knew why he so enjoyed my leaning over and adjusting his microphone, or fussing with the pillows, or wiping his eyes. Human touch. At seventy-eight, he was giving as an adult and taking as a child. Later that day, we talked about aging. Or maybe 1 should say the fear of aging-another of the issues on my what's-bugging-my-generation list. On my ride from the Boston airport, I had counted the billboards that featured young and beautiful people. There was a handsome young man in a cowboy hat, smoking a cigarette, two beautiful young women smiling over a shampoo bottle, a sultrylooking teenager with her jeans unsnapped, and a sexy woman in a black velvet dress, next to a man in a tuxedo, the two of them snuggling a glass of scotch. Not once did I see anyone who would pass for over thirty-five. I told Morrie I was already feeling over the hill, much as I tried desperately to stay on top of it. I worked out constantly. Watched what I ate. Checked my hairline in the mirror. I had gone from being proud to say my age-because of all I had done so young-to not bringing it up, for fear I was getting too close to forty and, therefore, professional oblivion. Morrie had aging in better perspective. "All this emphasis on youth-I don't buy it," he said. "Listen, I know what a misery being young can be, so don't tell me it's so great. All these kids who came to me with their struggles, their strife, their feelings of 40

inadequacy, their sense that life was miserable, so bad they wanted to kill themselves . . . "And, in addition to all the miseries, the young are not wise. They have very little understanding about life. Who wants to live every day when you don't know what's going on? When people are manipulating you, telling you to buy this perfume and you'll be beautiful, or this pair of jeans and you'll be sexy-and you believe them! It's such nonsense." Weren't you ever afraid to grow old, I asked? "Mitch, I embrace aging." Embrace it? "It's very simple. As you grow, you learn more. If you stayed at twenty-two, you'd always be as ignorant as you were at twenty-two. Aging is not just decay, you know. It's growth. It's more than the negative that you're going to die, it's also the positive that you understand you're going to die, and that you live a better life because of it." Yes, I said, but if aging were so valuable, why do people always say, "Oh, if I were young again." You never hear people say, "I wish I were sixty-five." He smiled. "You know what that reflects? Unsatisfied lives. Unfulfilled lives. Lives that haven't found meaning. Because if you've found meaning in your life, you don't want to go back. You want to go forward. You want to see more, do more. You can't wait until sixty-five. "Listen. You should know something. All younger people should know something. If you're always battling against getting older, you're always going to be unhappy, because it will happen anyhow. "And Mitch?" He lowered his voice. "The fact is, you are going to die eventually." I nodded. "It won't matter what you tell yourself." I know. "But hopefully," he said, "not for a long, long time." He closed his eyes with a peaceful look, then asked me to adjust the pillows behind his head. His body needed constant adjustment to stay comfortable. It was propped in the chair with white pillows, yellow foam, and blue towels. At a quick glance, it seemed as if Morrie were being packed for shipping. "Thank you," he whispered as I moved the pillows. No problem, I said. "Mitch. What are you thinking?" I paused before answering. Okay, I said, I'm wondering how you don't envy younger, healthy people. "Oh, I guess I do." He closed his eyes. "I envy them being able to go to the health club, or go for a swim. Or dance. Mostly for dancing. But envy comes to me, I feel it, and then I let it go. Remember what I said about detachment? Let it go. Tell yourself, `That's envy, I'm going to separate from it now.' And walk away." He coughed-a long, scratchy cough-and he pushed a tissue to his mouth and spit weakly into it. Sitting there, I felt so much stronger than he, ridiculously so, as if I could lift him and toss him over my shoulder like a sack of flour. I was embarrassed by this superiority, because I did not feel superior to him in any other way. How do you keep from envying . . . "What?" Me? He smiled. "Mitch, it is impossible for the old not to envy the young. But the issue is to accept who you are and revel in that. This is your time to be in your thirties. I had my time to be in my thirties, and now is my time to be seventy-eight. "You have to find what's good and true and beautiful in your life as it is now. Looking back makes you competitive. And, age is not a competitive issue." He exhaled and lowered his eyes, as if to watch his breath scatter into the air. "The truth is, part of me is every age. I'm a three-year-old, I'm a five-year-old, I'm a thirty-seven-year-old, I'm a fifty-year-old. I've been through all of them, and I know what it's like. I delight in being a child when 41

it's appropriate to be a child. I delight in being a wise old man when it's appropriate to be a wise old man. Think of all I can be! I am every age, up to my own. Do you understand?" I nodded. "How can I be envious of where you are-when I've been there myself?"

"Fate succumbs many a species: one alone jeopardises itself." -W. H. AUDEN, MORRIE 'S FAVORITE " POET

The Eighth Tuesday We Talk About Money I held up the newspaper so that Morrie could see it: I DON'T WANT MY TOMBSTONE TO READ I NEVER OWNED A NETWORK." Morrie laughed, then shook his head. The morning sun was coming through the window behind him, falling on the pink flowers of the hibiscus plant that sat on the sill. The quote was from Ted Turner, the billionaire media mogul, founder of CNN, who had been lamenting his inability to snatch up the CBS network in a corporate megadeal. I had brought the story to Morrie this morning because I wondered if Turner ever found himself in my old professor's position, his breath disappearing, his body turning to stone, his days being crossed off the calendar one by one-would he really be crying over owning a network? "It's all part of the same problem, Mitch," Morrie said. "We put our values in the wrong things. And it leads to very disillusioned lives. I think we should talk about that." Morrie was focused. There were good days and bad days now. He was having a good day. The night before, he had been entertained by a local a cappella group that had come to the house to perform, and he relayed the story excitedly, as if the Ink Spots themselves had dropped by for a visit. Morrie's love for music was strong even before he got sick, but now it was so intense, it moved him to tears. He would listen to opera sometimes at night, closing his eyes, riding along with the magnificent voices as they dipped and soared. "You should have heard this group last night, Mitch. Such a sound!" Morrie had always been taken with simple pleasures, singing, laughing, dancing. Now, more than ever, material things held little or no significance. When people die, you always hear the expression "You can't take it with you." Morrie seemed to know that a long time ago. "We've got a form of brainwashing going on in our country," Morrie sighed. "Do you know how they brainwash people? They repeat something over and over. And that's what we do in this country. Owning things is good. More money is good. More property is good. More commercialism is good. More is good. More is good. We repeat it-and have it repeated to us-over and over until nobody bothers to even think otherwise. The average person is so fogged up by all this, he has no perspective on what's really important anymore. "Wherever I went in my life, I met people wanting to gobble up something new. Gobble up a new car. Gobble up a new piece of property. Gobble up the latest toy. And then they wanted to tell you about it. `Guess what I got? Guess what I got?' "You know how I always interpreted that? These were people so hungry for love that they were accepting substitutes. They were embracing material things and expecting a sort of hug back. But it never works. You can't substitute material things for love or for gentleness or for tenderness or for a sense of comradeship. "Money is not a substitute for tenderness, and power is not a substitute for tenderness. I can tell you, as I'm sitting here dying, when you most need it, neither money nor power will give you the feeling you're looking for, no matter how much of them you have." I glanced around Morrie's study. It was the same today as it had been the first day I arrived. The books held their same places on the shelves. The papers cluttered the same old desk. The outside rooms had not been improved or upgraded. In fact, Morrie really hadn't bought anything new-except medical equipment-in a 42

long, long time, maybe years. The day he learned that he was terminally ill was the day he lost interest in his purchasing power. So the TV was the same old model, the car that Charlotte drove was the same old model, the dishes and the silverware and the towels-all the same. And yet the house had changed so drastically. It had filled with love and teaching and communication. It had filled with friendship and family and honesty and tears. It had filled with colleagues and students and meditation teachers and therapists and nurses and a cappella groups. It had become, in a very real way, a wealthy home, even though Morrie's bank account was rapidly depleting. "There's a big confusion in this country over what we want versus what we need," Morrie said. "You need food, you want a chocolate sundae. You have to be honest with yourself. You don't need the latest sports car, you don't need the biggest house. "The truth is, you don't get satisfaction from those things. You know what really gives you satisfaction?" What? "Offering others what you have to give." You sound like a Boy Scout. "I don't mean money, Mitch. I mean your time. Your concern. Your storytelling. It's not so hard. There's a senior center that opened near here. Dozens of elderly people come there every day. If you're a young man or young woman and you have a skill, you are asked to come and teach it. Say you know computers. You come there and teach them computers. You are very welcome there. And they are very grateful. This is how you start to get respect, by offering something that you have. "There are plenty of places to do this. You don't need to have a big talent. There are lonely people in hospitals and shelters who only want some companionship. You play cards with a lonely older man and you find new respect for yourself, because you are needed. "Remember what I said about finding a meaningful life? I wrote it down, but now I can recite it: Devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning. "You notice," he added, grinning, "there's nothing in there about a salary." I jotted some of the things Morrie was saying on a yellow pad. I did this mostly because I didn't want him to see my eyes, to know what I was thinking, that I had been, for much of my life since graduation, pursuing these very things he had been railing against-bigger toys, nicer house. Because I worked among rich and famous athletes, I convinced myself that my needs were realistic, my greed inconsequential compared to theirs. This was a smokescreen. Morrie made that obvious. "Mitch, if you're trying to show off for people at the top, forget it. They will look down at you anyhow. And if you're trying to show off for people at the bottom, forget it. They will only envy you. Status will get you nowhere. Only an open heart will allow you to float equally between everyone." He paused, then looked at me. "I'm dying, right?" Yes. "Why do you think it's so important for me to hear other people's problems? Don't I have enough pain and suffering of my own? "Of course I do. But giving to other people is what makes me feel alive. Not my car or my house. Not what I look like in the mirror. When I give my time, when I can make someone smile after they were feeling sad, it's as close to healthy as I ever feel. "Do the kinds of things that come from the heart. When you do, you won't be dissatisfied, you won't be envious, you won't be longing for somebody else's things. On the contrary, you'll be overwhelmed with what comes back." He coughed and reached for the small bell that lay on the chair. He had to poke a few times at it, and I finally picked it up and put it in his hand. "Thank you," he whispered. He shook it weakly, trying to get Connie's attention. "This Ted Turner guy," Morrie said, "he couldn't think of anything else for his tombstone?"

'Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn. " --MAHATMA GANDHI

The Ninth Tuesday We Talk About How Love Goes On The leaves had begun to change color, turning the ride through West Newton into a portrait of gold and rust. Back in Detroit, the labor war had stagnated, with each side accusing the other of failing to communicate. The stories on the TV news were just as depressing. In rural Kentucky, three men threw pieces of a tombstone off a bridge, smashing the windshield of a passing car, killing a teenage girl who was traveling with her family on a religious pilgrimage. In California, the O. J. Simpson trial was heading toward a conclusion, and the whole country seemed to be obsessed. Even in airports, there were hanging TV sets tuned to CNN so that you could get an O.J. update as you made your way to a gate. I had tried calling my brother in Spain several times. I left messages saying that I really wanted to talk to him, that I had been doing a lot of thinking about us. A few weeks later, I got back a short message saying everything was okay, but he was sorry, he really didn't feel like talking about being sick. For my old professor, it was not the talk of being sick but the being sick itself that was sinking him. Since my last visit, a nurse had inserted a catheter into his penis, which drew the urine out through a tube and into a bag that sat at the foot of his chair. His legs needed constant tending (he could still feel pain, even though he could not move them, another one of ALS's cruel little ironies), and unless his feet dangled just the right number of inches off the foam pads, it felt as if someone were poking him with a fork. In the middle of conversations, Morrie would have to ask visitors to lift his foot and move it just an inch, or to adjust his head so that it fit more easily into the palm of the colored pillows. Can you imagine being unable to move your own head? With each visit, Morrie seemed to be melting into his chair, his spine taking on its shape. Still, every morning he insisted on being lifted from his bed and wheeled to his study, deposited there among his books and papers and the hibiscus plant on the windowsill. In typical fashion, he found something philosophical in this. "I sum it up in my newest aphorism," he said. Let me hear it. "When you're in bed, you're dead." He smiled. Only Morrie could smile at something like that. He had been getting calls from the "Nightline" people and from Ted Koppel himself. "They want to come and do another show with me," he said. "But they say they want to wait." Until what? You're on your last breath? "Maybe. Anyhow, I'm not so far away." Don't say that. "I'm sorry." That bugs me, that they want to wait until you wither. "It bugs you because you look out for me." He smiled. "Mitch, maybe they are using me for a little drama. That's okay. Maybe I'm using them, too. They help me get my message to millions of people. I couldn't do that without them, right? So it's a compromise." He coughed, which turned into a long-drawn-out gargle, ending with another glob into a crushed tissue. "Anyhow," Morrie said, "I told them they better not wait too long, because my voice won't be there. Once this thing hits my lungs, talking may become impossible. I can't speak for too long without needing a rest now. I have already canceled a lot of the people who want to see me. Mitch, there are so many. But I'm too fatigued. If I can't give them the right attention, I can't help them." I looked at the tape recorder, feeling guilty, as if I were stealing what was left of his precious speaking time. "Should we skip it?" I asked. "Will it make you too tired?" Morrie shut his eyes and shook his head. He seemed to be waiting for some silent pain to pass. "No," he finally said. "You and I have to go on. 44

"This is our last thesis together, you know." Our last thesis. "We want to get it right." I thought about our first thesis together, in college. It was Morrie's idea, of course. He told me I was good enough to write an honors project-something I had never considered. Now here we were, doing the same thing once more. Starting with an idea. Dying man talks to living man, tells him what he should know. This time, I was in less of a hurry to finish. "Someone asked me an interesting question yesterday," Morrie said now, looking over my shoulder at the wallhanging behind me, a quilt of hopeful messages that friends had stitched for him on his seventieth birthday. Each patch on the quilt had a different message: STAY THE COURSE, THE BEST IS YET TO BE, MORRIE-ALWAYS NO. 1 IN MENTAL HEALTH! What was the question? I asked. "If I worried about being forgotten after I died?" Well? Do you? "I don't think I will be. I've got so many people who have been involved with me in close, intimate ways. And love is how you stay alive, even after you are gone." Sounds like a song lyric-"love is how you stay alive." Morrie chuckled. "Maybe. But, Mitch, all this talk that we're doing? Do you ever hear my voice sometimes when you're back home? When you're all alone? Maybe on the plane? Maybe in your car?" Yes, I admitted. "Then you will not forget me after I'm gone. Think of my voice and I'll be there." Think of your voice. "And if you want to cry a little, it's okay." Morrie. He had wanted to make me cry since I was a freshman. "One of these days, I'm gonna get to you," he would say. Yeah, yeah, I would answer. *** "I decided what I wanted on my tombstone," he said. I don't want to hear about tombstones. "Why? They make you nervous?" I shrugged. "We can forget it." No, go ahead. What did you decide? Morrie popped his lips. "I was thinking of this: A Teacher to the Last." He waited while I absorbed it. A Teacher to the Last. "Good?" he said. Yes, I said. Very good. *** I came to love the way Morrie lit up when I entered the room. He did this for many people, I know, but it was his special talent to make each visitor feel that the smile was unique. "Ahhhh, it's my buddy," he would say when he saw me, in that foggy, high-pitched voice. And it didn't stop with the greeting. When Morrie was with you, he was really with you. He looked you straight in the eye, and he listened as if you were the only person in the world. How much better would people get along if their first encounter each day were like this-instead of a grumble from a waitress or a bus driver or a boss? "I believe in being fully present," Morrie said. "That means you should be with the person you're with. When I'm talking to you now, Mitch, I try to keep focused only on what is going on between us. I am not thinking about something we said last week. I am not thinking of what's coming up this Friday. I am not thinking about doing another Koppel show, or about what medications I'm taking. "I am talking to you. I am thinking about you." I remembered how he used to teach this idea in the Group Process class back at Brandeis. I had scoffed back then, thinking this was hardly a lesson plan for a university course. Learning to pay attention? 45

How important could that be? I now know it is more important than almost everything they taught us in college. Morrie motioned for my hand, and as I gave it to him, I felt a surge of guilt. Here was a man who, if he wanted, could spend every waking moment in self-pity, feeling his body for decay, counting his breaths. So many people with far smaller problems are so self-absorbed, their eyes glaze over if you speak for more than thirty seconds. They already have something else in mind-a friend to call, a fax to send, a lover they're daydreaming about. They only snap back to full attention when you finish talking, at which point they say "Uh-huh" or "Yeah, really" and fake their way back to the moment. "Part of the problem, Mitch, is that everyone is in such a hurry," Morrie said. "People haven't found meaning in their lives, so they're running all the time looking for it. They think the next car, the next house, the next job. Then they find those things are empty, too, and they keep running." Once you start running, I said, it's hard to slow yourself down. "Not so hard," he said, shaking his head. "Do you know what I do? When someone wants to get ahead of me in traffic-when I used to be able to drive-I would raise my hand . . ." He tried to do this now, but the hand lifted weakly, only six inches. " . . . I would raise my hand, as if I was going to make a negative gesture, and then I would wave and smile. Instead of giving them the finger, you let them go, and you smile. "You know what? A lot of times they smiled back. "The truth is, I don't have to be in that much of a hurry with my car. I would rather put my energies into people." He did this better than anyone I'd ever known. Those who sat with him saw his eyes go moist when they spoke about something horrible, or crinkle in delight when they told him a really bad joke. He was always ready to openly display the emotion so often missing from my baby boomer generation. We are great at small talk: "What do you do?" "Where do you live?" But really listening to someone-without trying to sell them something, pick them up, recruit them, or get some kind of status in return-how often do we get this anymore? I believe many visitors in the last few months of Morrie's life were drawn not because of the attention they wanted to pay to him but because of the attention he paid to them. Despite his personal pain and decay, this little old man listened the way they always wanted someone to listen. I told him he was the father everyone wishes they had. "Well," he said, closing his eyes, "I have some experience in that area . . ." *** The last time Morrie saw his own father was in a city morgue. Charlie Schwartz was a quiet man who liked to read his newspaper, alone, under a streetlamp on Tremont Avenue in the Bronx. Every night, when Morrie was little, Charlie would go for a walk after dinner. He was a small Russian man, with a ruddy complexion and a full head of grayish hair. Morrie and his brother, David, would look out the window and see him leaning against the lamppost, and Morrie wished he would come inside and talk to them, but he rarely did. Nor did he tuck them in, nor kiss them good-night. Morrie always swore he would do these things for his own children if he ever had any. And years later, when he had them, he did. Meanwhile, as Morrie raised his own children, Charlie was still living in the Bronx. He still took that walk. He still read the paper. One night, he went outside after dinner. A few blocks from home, he was accosted by two robbers. "Give us your money," one said, pulling a gun. Frightened, Charlie threw down his wallet and began to run. He ran through the streets, and kept running until he reached the steps of a relative's house, where he collapsed on the porch. Heart attack. He died that night. Morrie was called to identify the body. He flew to New York and went to the morgue. He was taken downstairs, to the cold room where the corpses were kept. "Is this your father?" the attendant asked. 46

Morrie looked at the body behind the glass, the body of the man who had scolded him and molded him and taught him to work, who had been quiet when Morrie wanted him to speak, who had told Morrie to swallow his memories of his mother when he wanted to share them with the world. He nodded and he walked away. The horror of the room, he would later say, sucked all other functions out of him. He did not cry until days later. Still, his father's death helped prepare Morrie for his own. This much he knew: there would be lots of holding and kissing and talking and laughter and no good-byes left unsaid, all the things he missed with his father and his mother. When the final moment came, Morrie wanted his loved ones around him, knowing what was happening. No one would get a phone call, or a telegram, or have to look through a glass window in some cold and foreign basement. In the South American rain forest, there is a tribe called the Desana, who see the world as a fixed quantity of energy that flows between all creatures. Every birth must therefore engender a death, and every death bring forth another birth. This way, the energy of the world remains complete. When they hunt for food, the Desana know that the animals they kill will leave a hole in the spiritual well. But that hole will be filled, they believe, by the souls of the Desana hunters when they die. Were there no men dying, there would be no birds orfish being born. I like this idea. Morrie likes it, too. The closer he gets to good-bye, the more he seems to feel we are all creatures in the same forest. What we take, we must replenish. "It's only fair," he says.

The Tenth Tuesday We Talk About Marriage I brought a visitor to meet Morrie. My wife. He had been asking me since the first day I came. "When do I meet Janine?" "When are you bringing her?" I'd always had excuses until a few days earlier, when I called his house to see how he was doing. It took a while for Morrie to get to the receiver. And when he did, I could hear the fumbling as someone held it to his ear. He could no longer lift a phone by himself. "Hiiiiii," he gasped. You doing okay, Coach? I heard him exhale. "Mitch . . . your coach . . . isn't having such a great day . . . His sleeping time was getting worse. He needed oxygen almost nightly now, and his coughing spells had become frightening. One cough could last an hour, and he never knew if he'd be able to stop. He always said he would die when the disease got his lungs. I shuddered when I thought how close death was. I'll see you on Tuesday, I said. You'll have a better day then. "Mitch." Yeah? "Is your wife there with you?" She was sitting next to me. "Put her on. I want to hear her voice." Now, I am married to a woman blessed with far more intuitive kindness than 1. Although she had never met Morrie, she took the phone -I would have shaken my head and whispered, "I'm not here! I'm not here!"-and in a minute, she was connecting with my old professor as if they'd known each other since college. I sensed this, even though all I heard on my end was "Uh-huh . . . Mitch told me . . . oh, thank you . . . When she hung up, she said, "I'm coming next trip." And that was that. Now we sat in his office, surrounding him in his recliner. Morrie, by his own admission, was a harmless flirt, and while he often had to stop for coughing, or to use the commode, he seemed to find new reserves of energy with Janine in the room. He looked at photos from our wedding, which Janine had brought along. "You are from Detroit?" Morrie said. Yes, Janine said. "I taught in Detroit for one year, in the late forties. I remember a funny story about that." He stopped to blow his nose. When he fumbled with the tissue, I held it in place and he blew weakly into it. 47

I squeezed it lightly against his nostrils, then pulled it off, like a mother does to a child in a car seat. "Thank you, Mitch." He looked at Janine. "My helper, this one is." Janine smiled. "Anyhow. My story. There were a bunch of sociologists at the university, and we used to play poker with other staff members, including this guy who was a surgeon. One night, after the game, he said, 'Morrie, I want to come see you work.' I said fine. So he came to one of my classes and watched me teach. "After the class was over he said, `All right, now, how would you like to see me work? I have an operation tonight.' I wanted to return the favor, so I said okay. "He took me up to the hospital. He said, `Scrub down, put on a mask, and get into a gown.' And next thing I knew, I was right next to him at the operating table. There was this woman, the patient, on the table, naked from the waist down. And he took a knife and went zip just like that! Well . . . Morrie lifted a finger and spun it around. " . . . I started to go like this. I'm about to faint. All the blood. Yech. The nurse next to me said, `What's the matter, Doctor?' and I said, `I'm no damn doctor! Get me out of here!' " We laughed, and Morrie laughed, too, as hard as he could, with his limited breathing. It was the first time in weeks that I could recall him telling a story like this. How strange, I thought, that he nearly fainted once from watching someone else's illness, and now he was so able to endure his own. Connie knocked on the door and said that Morrie's lunch was ready. It was not the carrot soup and vegetable cakes and Greek pasta I had brought that morning from Bread and Circus. Although I tried to buy the softest of foods now, they were still beyond Morrie's limited strength to chew and swallow. He was eating mostly liquid supplements, with perhaps a bran muffin tossed in until it was mushy and easily digested. Charlotte would puree almost everything in a blender now. He was taking food through a straw. I still shopped every week and walked in with bags to show him, but it was more for the look on his face than anything else. When I opened the refrigerator, I would see an overflow of containers. I guess I was hoping that one day we would go back to eating a real lunch together and I could watch the sloppy way in which he talked while chewing, the food spilling happily out of his mouth. This was a foolish hope. "So . . . Janine," Morrie said. She smiled. "You are lovely. Give me your hand." She did. "Mitch says that you're a professional singer." Yes, Janine said. "He says you're great." Oh, she laughed. N0. He just says that. Morrie raised his eyebrows. "Will you sing something for me?" Now, I have heard people ask this of Janine for almost as long as I have known her. When people find out you sing for a living, they always say, "Sing something for us." Shy about her talent, and a perfectionist about conditions, Janine never did. She would politely decline. Which is what I expected now. Which is when she began to sing: "The very thought of you and I forget to do the little ordinary things that everyone ought to do . . . " It was a 1930s standard, written by Ray Noble, and Janine sang it sweetly, looking straight at Morrie. I was amazed, once again, at his ability t0 draw emotion from people who otherwise kept it locked away. Morrie closed his eyes to absorb the notes. As my wife's loving voice filled the room, a crescent smile appeared 0n his face. And while his body was stiff as a sandbag, you could almost see him dancing inside it. "I see your face in every flower, your eyes in stars above, it's just the thought of you, 48

the very thought of you, my love . . . " When she finished, Morrie opened his eyes and tears rolled down his cheeks. In all the years I have listened to my wife sing, I never heard her the way he did at that moment. *** Marriage. Almost everyone I knew had a problem with it. Some had problems getting into it, some had problems getting out. My generation seemed t0 struggle with the commitment, as if it were an alligator from some murky swamp. I had gotten used to attending weddings, congratulating the couple, and feeling only mild surprise when I saw the groom a few years later sitting in a restaurant with a younger woman whom he introduced as a friend. "You know, I'm separated from so-and-so . . ." he would say. Why do we have such problems? I asked Morrie about this. Having waited seven years before I proposed t0 Janine, I wondered if people my age were being more careful than those who came before us, or simply more selfish? "Well, I feel sorry for your generation," Morrie said. "In this culture, it's so important to find a loving relationship with someone because so much of the culture does not give you that. But the poor kids today, either they're too selfish to take part in a real loving relationship, or they rush into marriage and then six months later, they get divorced. They don't know what they want in a partner. They don't know who they are themselves-so how can they know who they're marrying?" He sighed. Morrie had counseled so many unhappy lovers in his years as a professor. "It's sad, because a loved one is so important. You realize that, especially when you're in a time like I am, when you're not doing so well. Friends are great, but friends are not going to be here on a night when you're coughing and can't sleep and someone has to sit up all night with you, comfort you, try to be helpful." Charlotte and Morrie, who met as students, had been married forty-four years. I watched them together now, when she would remind him of his medication, or come in and stroke his neck, or talk about one of their sons. They worked as a team, often needing no more than a silent glance to understand what the other was thinking. Charlotte was a private person, different from Morrie, but I knew how much he respected her, because sometimes when we spoke, he would say, "Charlotte might be uncomfortable with me revealing that," and he would end the conversation. It was the only time Morrie held anything back. "I've learned this much about marriage," he said now. "You get tested. You find out who you are, who the other person is, and how you accommodate or don't." Is there some kind of rule to know if a marriage is going to work? Morrie smiled. "Things are not that simple, Mitch." I know. "Still," he said, "there are a few rules I know to be true about love and marriage: If you don't respect the other person, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. If you don't know how to compromise, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. If you can't talk openly about what goes on between you, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. And if you don't have a common set of values in life, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. Your values must be alike. "And the biggest one of those values, Mitch?"' Yes? "Your belief in the importance of your marriage." He sniffed, then closed his eyes for a moment. "Personally," he sighed, his eyes still closed, "I think marriage is a very important thing to do, and you're missing a hell of a lot if you don't try it." He ended the subject by quoting the poem he believed in like a prayer: "Love each other or perish." *** Okay, question, I say to Morrie. His bony fingers hold his glasses across his chest, which rises and falls with each labored breath. "What's the question?" lie says. Remember the Book of Job? 49

"From the Bible?" Right. Job is a good mare, but God makes him suffer. To test his faith. "1 remember. " Takes away everything lie has, his house, his money, his family . . . "His health." Makes him sick. "To test his faith." Right. To test his faith. So, I'm wondering . . "What are you wondering?" What you think about that? Morrie coughs violently. His hands quiver as he drops them by his side. "I think, " he says, smiling, "God overdid it. "

The Eleventh Tuesday We Talk About Our Culture "Hit him harder." I slapped Morrie's back. "Harder." I slapped him again. "Near his shoulders . . . now down lower." Morrie, dressed in pajama bottoms, lay in bed on his side, his head flush against the pillow, his mouth open. The physical therapist was showing me how to bang loose the poison in his lungs-which he needed done regularly now, to keep it from solidifying, to keep him breathing. "I . . . always knew . . . you wanted . . . to hit me . . ." Morrie gasped. Yeah, I joked as I rapped my fist against the alabaster skin of his back. This is for that B you gave me sophomore year! Whack! We all laughed, a nervous laughter that comes when the devil is within earshot. It would have been cute, this little scene, were it not what we all knew it was, the final calisthenics before death. Morrie's disease was now dangerously close to his surrender spot, his lungs. He had been predicting he would die from choking, and I could not imagine a more terrible way to go. Sometimes he would close his eyes and try to draw the air up into his mouth and nostrils, and it seemed as if he were trying to lift an anchor. Outside, it was jacket weather, early October, the leaves clumped in piles on the lawns around West Newton. Morrie's physical therapist had come earlier in the day, and I usually excused myself when nurses or specialists had business with him. But as the weeks passed and our time ran down, I was increasingly less self-conscious about the physical embarrassment. I wanted to be there. I wanted to observe everything. This was not like me, but then, neither were a lot of things that had happened these last few months in Morrie's house. So I watched the therapist work on Morrie in the bed, pounding the back of his ribs, asking if he could feel the congestion loosening within him. And when she took a break, she asked if I wanted to try it. I said yes. Morrie, his face on the pillow, gave a little smile. "Not too hard," he said. "I'm an old man." I drummed on his back and sides, moving around, as she instructed. I hated the idea of Morrie's lying in bed under any circumstances (his last aphorism, "When you're in bed, you're dead," rang in my ears), and curled on his side, he was so small, so withered, it was more a boy's body than a man's. I saw the paleness of his skin, the stray white hairs, the way his arms hung limp and helpless. I thought about how much time we spend trying to shape our bodies, lifting weights, crunching sit-ups, and in the end, nature takes it away from us anyhow. Beneath my fingers, I felt the loose flesh around Morrie's bones, and I thumped him hard, as instructed. The truth is, I was pounding on his back when I wanted to be hitting the walls. 50

"Mitch?" Morrie gasped, his voice jumpy as a jackhammer as I pounded on him. Uh-huh? "When did . . . I . . . give you . . . a B?" *** Morrie believed in the inherent good of people. But he also saw what they could become. "People are only mean when they're threatened," he said later that day, "and that's what our culture does. That's what our economy does. Even people who have jobs in our economy are threatened, because they worry about losing them. And when you get threatened, you start looking out only for yourself. You start making money a god. It is all part of this culture." He exhaled. "Which is why I don't buy into it." I nodded at him and squeezed his hand. We held hands regularly now. This was another change for me. Things that before would have made me embarrassed or squeamish were now routinely handled. The catheter bag, connected to the tube inside him and filled with greenish waste fluid, lay by my foot near the leg of his chair. A few months earlier, it might have disgusted me; it was inconsequential now. So was the smell of the room after Morrie had used the commode. He did not have the luxury of moving from place to place, of closing a bathroom door behind him, spraying some air freshener when he left. There was his bed, there was his chair, and that was his life. If my life were squeezed into such a thimble, I doubt I could make it smell any better. "Here's what I mean by building your own little subculture," Morrie said. "I don't mean you disregard every rule of your community. I don't go around naked, for example. I don't run through red lights. The little things, I can obey. But the big things-how we think, what we value-those you must choose yourself. You can't let anyone-or any society determine those for you. "Take my condition. The things I am supposed to be embarrassed about now-not being able to walk, not being able to wipe my ass, waking up some mornings wanting to cry-there is nothing innately embarrassing or shaming about them. "It's the same for women not being thin enough, or men not being rich enough. It's just what our culture would have you believe. Don't believe it." I asked Morrie why he hadn't moved somewhere else when he was younger. "Where?" I don't know. South America. New Guinea. Someplace not as selfish as America. "Every society has its own problems," Morrie said, lifting his eyebrows, the closest he could come to a shrug. "The way to do it, I think, isn't to run away. You have to work at creating your own culture. "Look, no matter where you live, the biggest defect we human beings have is our shortsightedness. We don't see what we could be. We should be looking at our potential, stretching ourselves into everything we can become. But if you're surrounded by people who say `I want mine now,' you end up with a few people with everything and a military to keep the poor ones from rising up and stealing it." Morrie looked over my shoulder to the far window. Sometimes you could hear a passing truck or a whip of the wind. He gazed for a moment at his neighbors' houses, then continued. "The problem, Mitch, is that we don't believe we are as much alike as we are. Whites and blacks, Catholics and Protestants, men and women. If we saw each other as more alike, we might be very eager to join in one big human family in this world, and to care about that family the way we care about our own. "But believe me, when you are dying, you see it is true. We all have the same beginning-birth-and we all have the same end-death. So how different can we be? "Invest in the human family. Invest in people. Build a little community of those you love and who love you." He squeezed my hand gently. I squeezed back harder. And like that carnival contest where you bang a hammer and watch the disk rise up the pole, I could almost see my body heat rise up Morrie's chest and neck into his cheeks and eyes. He smiled. "In the beginning of life, when we are infants, we need others to survive, right? And at the end of life, when 51

you get like me, you need others to survive, right?" His voice dropped to a whisper. "But here's the secret: in between, we need others as well."

*** Later that afternoon, Connie and I went into the bedroom to watch the O. J. Simpson verdict. It was a tense scene as the principals all turned to face the jury, Simpson, in his blue suit, surrounded by his small army of lawyers, the prosecutors who wanted him behind bars just a few feet away. When the foreman read the verdict "Not guilty"-Connie shrieked. "Oh my God!" We watched as Simpson hugged his lawyers. We listened as the commentators tried to explain what it all meant. We saw crowds of blacks celebrating in the streets outside the courthouse, and crowds of whites sitting stunned inside restaurants. The decision was being hailed as momentous, even though murders take place every day. Connie went out in the hall. She had seen enough. I heard the door to Morrie's study close. I stared at the TV set. Everyone in the world is watching this thing, I told myself. Then, from the other room, I heard the ruffling of Morrie's being lifted from his chair and I smiled. As "The Trial of the Century" reached its dramatic conclusion, my old professor was sitting on the toilet. *** It is 1979, a basketball game in the Brandeis gym. The team is doing well, and the student section begins a chant, "We're number one! We're number one!" Morrie is sitting nearby. He is puzzled by the cheer. At one point, in the midst of "We're number one!" he rises and yells, "What's wrong with being number two?" The students look at him. They stop chanting. He sits down, smiling and triumphant.

The Audiovisual, Part Three The "Nightline" crew came back for its third and final visit. The whole tenor of the thing was different now. Less like an interview, more like a sad farewell. Ted Koppel had called several times before coming up, and he had asked Morrie, "Do you think you can handle it?" Morrie wasn't sure he could. "I'm tired all the time now, Ted. And I'm choking a lot. If I can't say something, will you say it for me?" Koppel said sure. And then the normally stoic anchor added this: "If you don't want to do it, Morrie, it's okay. I'll come up and say good-bye anyhow." Later, Morrie would grin mischievously and say, "I'm getting to him." And he was. Koppel now referred to Morrie as "a friend." My old professor had even coaxed compassion out of the television business. For the interview, which took place on a Friday afternoon, Morrie wore the same shirt he'd had on the day before. He changed shirts only every other day at this point, and this was not the other day, so why break routine? Unlike the previous two Koppel-Schwartz sessions, this one was conducted entirely within Morrie's study, where Morrie had become a prisoner of his chair. Koppel, who kissed my old professor when he first saw him, now had to squeeze in alongside the bookcase in order to be seen in the camera's lens. Before they started, Koppel asked about the disease's progression. "How bad is it, Morrie?" Morrie weakly lifted a hand, halfway up his belly. This was as far as he could go. Koppel had his answer. The camera rolled, the third and final interview. Koppel asked if Morrie was more afraid now that death was near. Morrie said no; to tell the truth, he was less afraid. He said he was letting go of some of the outside world, not having the newspaper read to him as much, not paying as much attention to mail, instead listening more to music and watching the leaves change color through his window. There were other people who suffered from ALS, Morrie knew, some of them famous, such as Stephen Hawking, the brilliant physicist and author of A Brief History of Time. He lived with a hole in his throat, spoke through a computer synthesizer, typed words by batting his eyes as a sensor picked up the movement. 52

This was admirable, but it was not the way Morrie wanted to live. He told Koppel he knew when it would be time to say good-bye. "For me, Ted, living means I can be responsive to the other person. It means I can show my emotions and my feelings. Talk to them. Feel with them . . ." He exhaled. "When that is gone, Morrie is gone." They talked like friends. As he had in the previous two interviews, Koppel asked about the "old ass wipe test"-hoping, perhaps, for a humorous response. But Morrie was too tired even to grin. He shook his head. "When I sit on the commode, I can no longer sit up straight. I'm listing all the time, so they have to hold me. When I'm done they have to wipe me. That is how far it's gotten." He told Koppel he wanted to die with serenity. He shared his latest aphorism: "Don't let go too soon, but don't hang on too long." Koppel nodded painfully. Only six months had passed between the first "Nightline" show and this one, but Morrie Schwartz was clearly a collapsed form. He had decayed before a national TV audience, a miniseries of a death. But as his body rotted, his character shone even more brightly. Toward the end of the interview, the camera zoomed in on Morrie-Koppel was not even in the picture, only his voice was heard from outside it-and the anchor asked if my old professor had anything he wanted to say to the millions of people he had touched. Although he did not mean it this way, I couldn't help but think of a condemned man being asked for his final words. "Be compassionate," Morrie whispered. "And take responsibility for each other. If we only learned those lessons, this world would be so much better a place." He took a breath, then added his mantra: "Love each other or die." The interview was ended. But for some reason, the cameraman left the film rolling, and a final scene was caught on tape. "You did a good job," Koppel said. Morrie smiled weakly. "I gave you what I had," he whispered. "You always do." "Ted, this disease is knocking at my spirit. But it will not get my spirit. It'll get my body. It will not get my spirit." Koppel was near tears. "You done good." "You think so?" Morrie rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. "I'm bargaining with Him up there now. I'm asking Him, `Do I get to be one of the angels?' " It was the first time Morrie admitted talking to God.

The Twelfth Tuesday We Talk About Forgiveness "Forgive yourself before you die. Then forgive others." This was a few days after the "Nightline" interview. The sky was rainy and dark, and Morrie was beneath a blanket. I sat at the far end of his chair, holding his bare feet. They were callused and curled, and his toenails were yellow. I had a small jar of lotion, and I squeezed some into my hands and began to massage his ankles. It was another of the things I had watched his helpers do for months, and now, in an attempt to hold on to what I could of him, I had volunteered to do it myself. The disease had left Morrie without the ability even to wiggle his toes, yet he could still feel pain, and massages helped relieve it. Also, of course, Morrie liked being held and touched. And at this point, anything I could do to make him happy, I was going to do. "Mitch," he said, returning to the subject of forgiveness. "There is no point in keeping vengeance or stubbornness. These things"-he sighed-"these things I so regret in my life. Pride. Vanity. Why do we do the things we do?" The importance of forgiving was my question. I had seen those movies where the patriarch of the family is on his death bed and he calls for his estranged son so that he can make peace before he goes. I wondered if 53

Morrie had any of that inside him, a sudden need to say "I'm sorry" before he died? Morrie nodded. "Do you see that sculpture?" He tilted his head toward a bust that sat high on a shelf against the far wall of his office. I had never really noticed it before. Cast in bronze, it was the face of a man in his early forties, wearing a necktie, a tuft of hair falling across his forehead. "That's me," Morrie said. "A friend of mine sculpted that maybe thirty years ago. His name was Norman. We used to spend so much time together. We went swimming. We took rides to New York. He had me over to his house in Cambridge, and he sculpted that bust of me down in his basement. It took several weeks to do it, but he really wanted to get it right." I studied the face. How strange to see a three-dimensional Morrie, so healthy, so young, watching over us as we spoke. Even in bronze, he had a whimsical look, and I thought this friend had sculpted a little spirit as well. "Well, here's the sad part of the story," Morrie said. "Norman and his wife moved away to Chicago. A little while later, my wife, Charlotte, had to have a pretty serious operation. Norman and his wife never got in touch with us. I know they knew about it. Charlotte and I were very hurt because they never called to see how she was. So we dropped the relationship. "Over the years, I met Norman a few times and he always tried to reconcile, but I didn't accept it. I wasn't satisfied with his explanation. I was prideful. I shrugged him off. " His voice choked. "Mitch . . . a few years ago . . . he died of cancer. I feel so sad. I never got to see him. I never got to forgive. It pains me now so much . . ." He was crying again, a soft and quiet cry, and because his head was back, the tears rolled off the side of his face before they reached his lips. Sorry, I said. "Don't be," he whispered. "Tears are okay." I continued rubbing lotion into his lifeless toes. He wept for a few minutes, alone with his memories. "It's not just other people we need to forgive, Mitch," he finally whispered. We also need to forgive ourselves." Ourselves? "Yes. For all the things we didn't do. All the things we should have done. You can't get stuck on the regrets of what should have happened. That doesn't help you when you get to where I am. "I always wished I had done more with my work; I wished I had written more books. I used to beat myself up over it. Now I see that never did any good. Make peace. You need to make peace with yourself and everyone around you." I leaned over and dabbed at the tears with a tissue. Morrie flicked his eyes open and closed. His breathing was audible, like a light snore. "Forgive yourself. Forgive others. Don't wait, Mitch. Not everyone gets the time I'm getting. Not everyone is as lucky." I tossed the tissue into the wastebasket and returned to his feet. Lucky? I pressed my thumb into his hardened flesh and he didn't even feel it. "The tension of opposites, Mitch. Remember that? Things pulling in different directions?" I remember. "I mourn my dwindling time, but I cherish the chance it gives me to make things right." We sat there for a while, quietly, as the rain splattered against the windows. The hibiscus plant behind his head was still holding on, small but firm. "Mitch," Morrie whispered. Uh-huh? I rolled his toes between my fingers, lost in the task. "Look at me." I glanced up and saw the most intense look in his eyes. 54

"I don't know why you came back to me. But I want to say this . . . He paused, and his voice choked. "If I could have had another son, I would have liked it to be you." I dropped my eyes, kneading the dying flesh of his feet between my fingers. For a moment, I felt afraid, as if accepting his words would somehow betray my own father. But when I looked up, I saw Morrie smiling through tears and I knew there was no betrayal in a moment like this. All I was afraid of was saying good-bye. *** "I've picked a place to be buried." Where is that? "Not far from here. On a hill, beneath a tree, overlooking a pond. Very serene. A good place to think." Are you planning on thinking there? "I'm planning on being dead there." He chuckles. I chuckle. "Will you visit?" Visit? `Just come and talk. Make it a Tuesday. You always come on Tuesdays. " We're Tuesday people. "Right. Tuesday people. Come to talk, then?" He has grown so weak so fast. "Look at me," he says. I'm looking. "You'll come to my grave? To tell me your problems?" My problems? "Yes.' And you'll give me answers? "I'll give you what I can. Don't I always?" I picture his grave, on the hill, overlooking the pond, some little nine foot piece of earth where they will place him, cover him with dirt, put a stone on top. Maybe in a few weeks? Maybe in a few days? I see myself sitting there alone, arms across my knees, staring into space. It won't be the same, I say, not being able to hear you talk. "Ah, talk . . . " He closes his eyes and smiles. "Tell you what. After I'm dead, you talk. And I'll listen."

The Thirteenth Tuesday We Talk About the Perfect Day Morrie wanted to be cremated. He had discussed it with Charlotte, and they decided it was the best way. The rabbi from Brandeis, Al Axelrad-a longtime friend whom they chose to conduct the funeral service-had come to visit Morrie, and Morrie told him of his cremation plans. "And Al?" "Yes?" "Make sure they don't overcook me." The rabbi was stunned. But Morrie was able to joke about his body now. The closer he got to the end, the more he saw it as a mere shell, a container of the soul. It was withering to useless skin and bones anyhow, which made it easier to let go. "We are so afraid of the sight of death," Morrie told me when I sat down. I adjusted the microphone on his collar, but it kept flopping over. Morrie coughed. He was coughing all the time now. "I read a book the other day. It said as soon as someone dies in a hospital, they pull the sheets up over their head, and they wheel the body to some chute and push it down. They can't wait to get it out of 55

their sight. People act as if death is contagious." I fumbled with the microphone. Morrie glanced at my hands. "It's not contagious, you know. Death is as natural as life. It's part of the deal we made." He coughed again, and I moved back and waited, always braced for something serious. Morrie had been having bad nights lately. Frightening nights. He could sleep only a few hours at a time before violent hacking spells woke him. The nurses would come into the bedroom, pound him on the back, try to bring up the poison. Even if they got him breathing normally again-"normally" meaning with the help of the oxygen machine--the fight left him fatigued the whole next day. The oxygen tube was up his nose now. I hated the sight of it. To me, it symbolized helplessness. I wanted to pull it out. "Last night . . ." Morrie said softly. Yes? Last night? ". . . I had a terrible spell. It went on for hours. And I really wasn't sure I was going to make it. No breath. No end to the choking. At one point, I started to get dizzy . . . and then I felt a certain peace, I felt that I was ready to go." His eyes widened. "Mitch, it was a most incredible feeling. The sensation of accepting what was happening, being at peace. I was thinking about a dream I had last week, where I was crossing a bridge into something unknown. Being ready to move on to whatever is next." But you didn't. Morrie waited a moment. He shook his head slightly. "No, I didn't. But I felt that I could. Do you understand? "That's what we're all looking for. A certain peace with the idea of dying. If we know, in the end, that we can ultimately have that peace with dying, then we can finally do the really hard thing." Which is? "Make peace with living." He asked to see the hibiscus plant on the ledge behind him. I cupped it in my hand and held it up near his eyes. He smiled. "It's natural to die," he said again. "The fact that we make such a big hullabaloo over it is all because we don't see ourselves as part of nature. We think because we're human we're something above nature." He smiled at the plant. "We're not. Everything that gets born, dies." He looked at me. "Do you accept that?" Yes. "All right," he whispered, "now here's the payoff. Here is how we are different from these wonderful plants and animals. "As long as we can love each other, and remember the feeling of love we had, we can die without ever really going away. All the love you created is still there. All the memories are still there. You live on-in the hearts of everyone you have touched and nurtured while you were here." His voice was raspy, which usually meant he needed to stop for a while. I placed the plant back on the ledge and went to shut off the tape recorder. This is the last sentence Morrie got out before I did: "Death ends a life, not a relationship." *** There had been a development in the treatment of ALS: an experimental drug that was just gaining passage. It was not a cure, but a delay, a slowing of the decay for perhaps a few months. Morrie had heard about it, but he was too far gone. Besides, the medicine wouldn't be available for several months. "Not for me," Morrie said, dismissing it. In all the time he was sick, Morrie never held out hope he would be cured. He was realistic to a fault. One time, I asked if someone were to wave a magic wand and make him all better, would he become, in time, the man he had been before? He shook his head. "No way I could go back. I am a different self now. I'm different in my attitudes. I'm different appreciating my body, which I didn't do fully before. I'm different in terms of trying to grapple 56

with the big questions, the ultimate questions, the ones that won't go away. "That's the thing, you see. Once you get your fingers on the important questions, you can't turn away from them." And which are the important questions? "As I see it, they have to do with love, responsibility, spirituality, awareness. And if I were healthy today, those would still be my issues. They should have been all along." I tried to imagine Morrie healthy. I tried to imagine him pulling the covers from his body, stepping from that chair, the two of us going for a walk around the neighborhood, the way we used to walk around campus. I suddenly realized it had been sixteen years since I'd seen him standing up. Sixteen years? What if you had one day perfectly healthy, I asked? What would you do? "Twenty-four hours?" Twenty-four hours. "Let's see . . . I'd get up in the morning, do my exercises, have a lovely breakfast of sweet rolls and tea, go for a swim, then have my friends come over for a nice lunch. I'd have them come one or two at a time so we could talk about their families, their issues, talk about how much we mean to each other. "Then I'd like to go for a walk, in a garden with some trees, watch their colors, watch the birds, take in the nature that I haven't seen in so long now. "In the evening, we'd all go together to a restaurant with some great pasta, maybe some duck-I love duck and then we'd dance the rest of the night. I'd dance with all the wonderful dance partners out there, until I was exhausted. And then I'd go home and have a deep, wonderful sleep." That's it? "That's it." It was so simple. So average. I was actually a little disappointed. I figured he'd fly to Italy or have lunch with the President or romp on the seashore or try every exotic thing he could think of. After all these months, lying there, unable to move a leg or a foot-how could he find perfection in such an average day? Then I realized this was the whole point. *** Before I left that day, Morrie asked if he could bring up a topic. "Your brother," he said. I felt a shiver. I do not know how Morrie knew this was on my mind. I had been trying to call my brother in Spain for weeks, and had learned-from a friend of histhat he was flying back and forth to a hospital in Amsterdam. "Mitch, I know it hurts when you can't be with someone you love. But you need to be at peace with his desires. Maybe he doesn't want you interrupting your life. Maybe he can't deal with that burden. I tell everyone I know to carry on with the life they know-don't ruin it because I am dying." But he's my brother, I said. "I know," Morrie said. "That's why it hurts." I saw Peter in my mind when he was eight years old, his curly blond hair puffed into a sweaty ball atop his head. I saw us wrestling in the yard next to our house, the grass stains soaking through the knees of our jeans. I saw him singing songs in front of the mirror, holding a brush as a microphone, and I saw us squeezing into the attic where we hid together as children, testing our parents' will to find us for dinner. And then I saw him as the adult who had drifted away, thin and frail, his face bony from the chemotherapy treatments. Morrie, I said. Why doesn't he want to see me? My old professor sighed. "There is no formula to relationships. They have to be negotiated in loving ways, with room for both parties, what they want and what they need, what they can do and what their life is like. "In business, people negotiate to win. They negotiate to get what they want. Maybe you're too used to that. Love is different. Love is when you are as concerned about someone else's situation as you are about your own. "You've had these special times with your brother, and you no longer have what you had with him. You 57

want them back. You never want them to stop. But that's part of being human. Stop, renew, stop, renew." I looked at him. I saw all the death in the world. I felt helpless. "You'll find a way back to your brother," Morrie said. How do you know? Morrie smiled. "You found me, didn't you?" *** "I heard a nice little story the other day," Morrie says. He closes his eyes for a moment and I wait. "Okay. The story is about a little wave, bobbing along in the ocean, having a grand old time. He's enjoying the wind and the fresh air-until he notices the other waves in front of him, crashing against the shore. " `My God, this is terrible,' the wave says. `Look what's going to happen to me!' "Then along comes another wave. It sees the first wave, looking grim, and it says to him, `Why do you look so sad?' "The first wave says, `You don't understand! We're all going to crash! All of us waves are going to be nothing! Isn't it terrible?' "The second wave says, `No, you don't understand. You're not a wave, you're part of the ocean.' " I smile. Morrie closes his eyes again. "Part of the ocean, " he says, "part of the ocean. " I watch him breathe, in and out, in and out.

The Fourteenth Tuesday We Say Good-bye It was cold and damp as I walked up the steps to Morrie's house. I took in little details, things I hadn't noticed for all the times I'd visited. The cut of the hill. The stone facade of the house. The pachysandra plants, the low shrubs. I walked slowly, taking my time, stepping on dead wet leaves that flattened beneath my feet. Charlotte had called the day before to tell me Morrie was not doing well." This was her way of saying the final days had arrived. Morrie had canceled all of his appointments and had been sleeping much of the time, which was unlike him. He never cared for sleeping, not when there were people he could talk with. "He wants you to come visit," Charlotte said, "but, Mitch . . ." Yes? "He's very weak." The porch steps. The glass in the front door. I absorbed these things in a slow, observant manner, as if seeing them for the first time. I felt the tape recorder in the bag on my shoulder, and I unzipped it to make sure I had tapes. I don't know why. I always had tapes. Connie answered the bell. Normally buoyant, she had a drawn look on her face. Her hello was softly spoken. "How's he doing?" I said. "Not so good." She bit her lower lip. "I don't like to think about it. He's such a sweet man, you know?" I knew. "This is such a shame." Charlotte came down the hall and hugged me. She said that Morrie was still sleeping, even though it was 10 A.M. We went into the kitchen. I helped her straighten up, noticing all the bottles of pills, lined up on the table, a small army of brown plastic soldiers with white caps. My old professor was taking morphine now to ease his breathing. I put the food I had brought with me into the refrigerator-soup, vegetable cakes, tuna salad. I apologized to Charlotte for bringing it. Morrie hadn't chewed food like this in months, we both knew that, but it had become a small tradition. Sometimes, when you're losing someone, you hang on to whatever tradition you can. I waited in the living room, where Morrie and Ted Koppel had done their first interview. I read the newspaper that was lying on the table. Two Minnesota children had shot each other playing with their 58

fathers' guns. A baby had been found buried in a garbage can in an alley in Los Angeles. I put down the paper and stared into the empty fireplace. I tapped my shoe lightly on the hardwood floor. Eventually, I heard a door open and close, then Charlotte's footsteps coming toward me. "All right," she said softly. "He's ready for you." I rose and I turned toward our familiar spot, then saw a strange woman sitting at the end of the hall in a folding chair, her eyes on a book, her legs crossed. This was a hospice nurse, part of the twenty-four- hour watch. Morrie's study was empty. I was confused. Then I turned back hesitantly to the bedroom, and there he was, lying in bed, under the sheet. I had seen him like this only one other time-when he was getting massaged-and the echo of his aphorism "When you're in bed, you're dead" began anew inside my head. I entered, pushing a smile onto my face. He wore a yellow pajama-like top, and a blanket covered him from the chest down. The lump of his form was so withered that I almost thought there was something missing. He was as small as a child. Morrie's mouth was open, and his skin was pale and tight against his cheekbones. When his eyes rolled toward me, he tried to speak, but I heard only a soft grunt. There he is, I said, mustering all the excitement I could find in my empty till. He exhaled, shut his eyes, then smiled, the very effort seeming to tire him. "My . . . dear friend . . ." he finally said. I am your friend, I said. "I'm not . . . so good today . . ." Tomorrow will be better. He pushed out another breath and forced a nod. He was struggling with something beneath the sheets, and I realized he was trying to move his hands toward the opening. "Hold . . ." he said. I pulled the covers down and grasped his fingers. They disappeared inside my own. I leaned in close, a few inches from his face. It was the first time I had seen him unshaven, the small white whiskers looking so out of place, as if someone had shaken salt neatly across his cheeks and chin. How could there be new life in his beard when it was draining everywhere else? Morrie, I said softly. "Coach," he corrected. Coach, I said. I felt a shiver. He spoke in short bursts, inhaling air, exhaling words. His voice was thin and raspy. He smelled of ointment. "You . . . are a good soul." A good soul. "Touched me . . ." he whispered. He moved my hands to his heart. "Here." It felt as if I had a pit in my throat. Coach? "Ahh?" I don't know how to say good-bye. He patted my hand weakly, keeping it on his chest. "This . . . is how we say . . . good-bye . . ." He breathed softly, in and out, I could feel his ribcage rise and fall. Then he looked right at me. "Love . . . you," he rasped. I love you, too, Coach. "Know you do . . . know . . . something else..." What else do you know? "You . . . always have . . . His eyes got small, and then he cried, his face contorting like a baby who hasn't figured how his tear ducts work. I held him close for several minutes. I rubbed his loose skin. I stroked his hair. I put a palm against his face and felt the bones close to the flesh and the tiny wet tears, as if squeezed from a dropper. When his breathing approached normal again, I cleared my throat and said I knew he was tired, so I would be back next Tuesday, and I expected him to be a little more alert, thank you. He snorted lightly, as close as he could come to a laugh. It was a sad sound just the same. 59

I picked up the unopened bag with the tape recorder. Why had I even brought this? I knew we would never use it. I leaned in and kissed him closely, my face against his, whiskers on whiskers, skin on skin, holding it there, longer than normal, in case it gave him even a split second of pleasure. Okay, then? I said, pulling away. I blinked back the tears, and he smacked his lips together and raised his eyebrows at the sight of my face. I like to think it was a fleeting moment of satisfaction for my dear old professor: he had finally made me cry."Okay, then," he whispered.

Graduation Morrie died on a Saturday morning. His immediate family was with him in the house. Rob made it in from Tokyo-he got to kiss his father good- bye-and Jon was there, and of course Charlotte was there and Charlotte's cousin Marsha, who had written the poem that so moved Morrie at his "unofficial" memorial service, the poem that likened him to a "tender sequoia." They slept in shifts around his bed. Morrie had fallen into a coma two days after our final visit, and the doctor said he could go at any moment. Instead, he hung on, through a tough afternoon, through a dark night. Finally, on the fourth of November, when those he loved had left the room just for a moment-to grab coffee in the kitchen, the first time none of them were with him since the coma began-Morrie stopped breathing. And he was gone. I believe he died this way on purpose. I believe he wanted no chilling moments, no one to witness his last breath and be haunted by it, the way he had been haunted by his mother's death-notice telegram or by his father's corpse in the city morgue. I believe he knew that he was in his own bed, that his books and his notes and his small hibiscus plant were nearby. He wanted to go serenely, and that is how he went. The funeral was held on a damp, windy morning. The grass was wet and the sky was the color of milk. We stood by the hole in the earth, close enough to hear the pond water lapping against the edge and to see ducks shaking off their feathers. Although hundreds of people had wanted to attend, Charlotte kept this gathering small, just a few close friends and relatives. Rabbi Axelrod read a few poems. Morrie's brother, David-who still walked with a limp from his childhood polio lifted the shovel and tossed dirt in the grave, as per tradition. At one point, when Morrie's ashes were placed into the ground, I glanced around the cemetery. Morrie was right. It was indeed a lovely spot, trees and grass and a sloping hill. "You talk, I'll listen, " he had said. I tried doing that in my head and, to my happiness, found that the imagined conversation felt almost natural. I looked down at my hands, saw my watch and realized why. It was Tuesday. "My father moved through theys of we, singing each new leaf out of each tree (and every child was sure that spring danced when she heard my father sing) . . . " --POEM BY E. E. CUMMINGS, READ BY MORRIE 'S SON, ROB, AT THE MEMORIAL SERVICE

Conclusion I look back sometimes at the person I was before I rediscovered my old professor. I want to talk to that person. I want to tell him what to look out for, what mistakes to avoid. I want to tell him to be more open, to ignore the lure of advertised values, to pay attention when your loved ones are speaking, as if it were the last time you might hear them. Mostly I want to tell that person to get on an airplane and visit a gentle old man in West Newton, 60

Massachusetts, sooner rather than later, before that old man gets sick and loses his ability to dance. I know I cannot do this. None of us can undo what we've done, or relive a life already recorded. But if Professor Morris Schwartz taught me anything at all, it was this: there is no such thing as "too late" in life. He was changing until the day he said good-bye. Not long after Morrie's death, I reached my brother in Spain. We had a long talk. I told him I respected his distance, and that all I wanted was to be in touch-in the present, not just the past-to hold him in my life as much as he could let me. "You're my only brother," I said. "I don't want to lose you. I love you." I had never said such a thing to him before. A few days later, I received a message on my fax machine. It was typed in the sprawling, poorly punctuated, all-cap-letters fashion that always characterized my brother's words. "HI I'VE JOINED THE NINETIES!" it began. He wrote a few little stories, what he'd been doing that week, a couple of jokes. At the end, he signed off this way: I HAVE HEARTBURN AND DIAHREA AT THE MOMENT-LIFE'S A BITCH. CHAT LATER? [signed] SORE TUSH. I laughed until there were tears in my eyes. *** This book was largely Morrie's idea. He called it our "final thesis." Like the best of work projects, it brought us closer together, and Morrie was delighted when several publishers expressed interest, even though he died before meeting any of them. The advance money helped pay Morrie's enormous medical bills, and for that we were both grateful. The title, by the way, we came up with one day in Morrie's office. He liked naming things. He had several ideas. But when I said, "How about Tuesdays with Morrie?" he smiled in an almost blushing way, and I knew that was it. After Morrie died, I went through boxes of old college material. And I discovered a final paper I had written for one of his classes. It was twenty years old now. On the front page were my pencilled comments scribbled to Morrie, and beneath them were his comments scribbled back. Mine began, "Dear Coach . . .' His began, "Dear Player . . ." For some reason, each time I read that, I miss him more. Have you ever really had a teacher? One who saw you as a raw but precious thing, a jewel that, with wisdom, could be polished to a proud shine? If you are lucky enough to find your way to such teachers, you will always find your way back. Sometimes it is only in your head. Sometimes it is right alongside their beds. The last class of my old professor's life took place once a week, in his home, by a window in his study where he could watch a small hibiscus plant shed its pink flowers. The class met on Tuesdays. No books were required. The subject was the meaning of life. It was taught from experience. The teaching goes on.

SPARK NOTE TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE (Adapted from http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/morrie/) Context Mitch Albom was born in New Jersey in 1958, though he spent the greater part of his youth in Philadelphia. In 1979, he earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, where met and studied under his beloved professor, Morrie Schwartz, the title character of Tuesdays With Morrie. In 1982, Albom was awarded a Masters degree from Columbia University in New York. After failed stints as an amateur boxer and nightclub musician, Albom began his career as a sports journalist, writing articles for newspapers such as the The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Detroit Free Press where he was employed from 1985 until his reunion with Morrie in 1995. Albom also has his own nationally syndicated radio show, Monday Sports Albom. In 1995, Albom began gathering notes for his book, Tuesdays With Morrie, which documents his and Morrie's discussions on the meaning of life which they hold each Tuesday of every week in Morrie's home. Albom claims to have written the book to offset Morrie's severe medical expenses, and has said in interviews that the profits from the two-year bestseller are divided between himself and the Schwartz family.

Morrie Schwartz was born in 1916. He graduated from New York's City College, and went on to win a fellowship to the University of Chicago where he was awarded a Ph.D. in sociology. In 1959, he began teaching sociology at Brandeis, a nonsectarian Jewish-sponsored university, established in 1948. It was not until 1995, when he was dying from ALS, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, that Morrie ended his career as a professor. A fatal neuromuscular disease, ALS is characterized by progressive muscle debilitation that ultimately results in paralysis. ALS is commonly known as Lou Gherig's disease, after the famous baseball player who died of the disease in 1941 at the age of forty.

Albom begins his visits to Morrie in mid-1995, during the climax of the O.J. Simpson murder trial. Simpson, an acclaimed star football player, had been on trial for the June 1994, murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her acquaintance, Ronald Goldman. Simpson had pleaded "absolutely not guilty" to the double murder, although he had been known for violence against his ex-wife and had led the police in a car chase. Major controversy surrounded jury members, who were said to have been racially biased in Simpson's favor. When in October of 1995, the jury acquitted Simpson of the murder charges, the nation suffered a severe racial division, white against black, evidenced in Tuesdays With Morrie by Connie's horror at the announcement of the "not guilty" verdict.

In Tuesdays With Morrie, Mitch recalls how the political controversies of the 1970's affected his and Morrie's years at Brandeis University. Following the nation's withdrawal from the Vietnam War in 1973, and former President Nixon's resignation from office in 1974, the Brandeis campus, like many college campuses nation-wide, was a hot bed for political debate and protest. Continuing the thread of racial tension in Tuesdays With Morrie, is a story Morrie tells about an incident in which he had acted as the negotiator between the university president and a group of black students who felt that they were being oppressed by the school administration. The students had established their protesting grounds in one of the university's science buildings, and hung a banner from a window that read: "Malcolm X University." The banner paid homage to Malcolm X, a premier black leader and militant advocate of black nationalism who was assassinated in 1965.

Plot Overview Mitch Albom, the book's narrator, recalls his graduation from Brandeis University in the spring of 1979. After he has received his diploma, Mitch approaches his favorite professor, Morrie Schwartz, and presents him with a monogrammed briefcase. While at Brandeis, Mitch takes almost all of the sociology courses Morrie had teaches. He promises Morrie, who is crying, that he will keep in touch, though he does not fulfill his promise. Years after Mitch's graduation from Brandeis, Morrie is forced to forfeit dancing, his favorite hobby, because he has been diagnosed with ALS, a debilitating disease that leaves his "soul, perfectly awake, imprisoned inside a limp husk" of a body. Morrie's wife, Charlotte, cares for Morrie, though at his insistence, keeps her job as a professor at M.I.T.

Sixteen years after his graduation from Brandeis, Mitch is feeling frustrated with the life he has chosen to live. After his uncle dies of pancreatic cancer, Mitch abandons his failing career as a musician to become a well-payed journalist for a Detroit newspaper. Mitch promises his wife Janine that they will have children eventually, though he spends all of his time at work, away on reporting assignments. One night, Mitch is flipping the channels on his television and recognizes Morrie's voice. Morrie is being featured on the television program "Nightline" in the first of three interviews with Ted Koppel, whom he quickly befriends. Before consenting to be interviewed, Morrie surprises and softens the famed newscaster when he asks Koppel what is "close to his heart." Mitch is stunned to see his former professor on television.

Following Morrie's television appearance, Mitch contacts his beloved professor and travels from his home in Detroit to Morrie's home in West Newton, Massachusetts to visit with him. When Mitch drives up to Morrie's house, he delays greeting his professor because he is speaking on the phone with his producer, a decision he later regrets.

Shortly after his reunion with Morrie, Mitch works himself nearly to death reporting on the Wimbledon tennis tournament in London. There, he spends much time thinking about Morrie and forfeits reading the tabloids, as he now seeks more meaning in his life and knows that he will not gain this meaning from reading about celebrities and gossip. He is knocked over by a swarm of reporters chasing celebrities Andre Agassi and Brooke Shields, and it is then that Mitch realizes he is chasing after the wrong thing. When he returns to his home in Detroit, Mitch learns that the article he has worked so hard to write will not even be published, as the union he belongs to is striking against the newspaper he works for. Once more, Mitch travels to Boston to visit Morrie.

Following their first Tuesday together, Mitch returns regularly every Tuesday to listen to Morrie's lessons on "The Meaning of Life." Each week, Mitch brings Morrie food to eat, though as Morrie's condition worsens he is no longer able to enjoy solid food. In his first of three interviews with Koppel for "Nightline," Morrie admits that the thing he dreads most about his worsening condition is that someday, he will not be able to wipe himself after using the bathroom. Eventually, this fear comes true.

Interspersed throughout Mitch's visits to Morrie are flashbacks to their days together at Brandeis. Mitch describes himself as a student who had acted tough, but had sought the tenderness he recognized in Morrie. At Brandeis, Mitch and Morrie shared a relationship more like that between father and son than teacher and student. Soon before Morrie's death, when his condition has deteriorated so much that he can no longer breathe or move on his own, he confides that if he could have another son, he would choose Mitch.

In his childhood, Morrie had been very poor. His father, Charlie had been cold and dispassionate, and had neglected to provide for Morrie and his younger brother emotionally and financially. At the age of eight,

Morrie must read the telegram that brings news of his mother's death, as he is the only one in his family who can read English. Charlie marries Eva, a kind woman who gives Morrie and his brother the love and affection they need. Eva also instills in Morrie his love of books and his desire for education. However, Charlie insists that Morrie keep his mother's death a secret, as he wants Morrie's younger brother to believe that Eva is his biological mother. This demand to keep his mother's death a secret proves a terrible emotional burden for young Morrie; he keeps the telegram all of his life as proof that his mother had existed. Because he was starved of love and affection during his childhood, Morrie seeks it out in his old age from his family and friends. Now that he is nearing his death, Morrie says that he has reverted to a figurative infancy, and tries in earnest "enjoy being a baby again." He and Mitch often hold hands throughout their sessions together.

In his lessons, Morrie advises Mitch to reject the popular culture in favor of creating his own. The individualistic culture Morrie encourages Mitch to create for himself is a culture founded on love, acceptance, and human goodness, a culture that upholds a set of ethical values unlike the mores that popular culture endorses. Popular culture, Morrie says, is founded on greed, selfishness, and superficiality, which he urges Mitch to overcome. Morrie also stresses that he and Mitch must accept death and aging, as both are inevitable.

On one Tuesday, Janine travels with Mitch to visit Morrie. Janine is a professional singer, and Morrie asks her to sing for him. Though she does not usually sing upon request, Janine concedes, and her voice moves Morrie to tears. Morrie cries freely and often, and continually encourages Mitch to do so also. As Morrie's condition deteriorates, so does that of the pink hibiscus plant that sits on the window ledge in his study. Mitch becomes increasingly aware of the evil in media, as it drenches the country with stories of murder and hatred. One such story is the murder trial of O.J. Simpson, the verdict of which causes major racial division between whites and blacks.

Mitch tape records his discussions with Morrie so that he may compile notes with which to write a book, Tuesdays With Morrie, a project which he and Morrie refer to as their "last thesis together." Morrie continually tells Mitch that he wants to share his stories with the world, a the book will allow him to do just that.

Meanwhile, at Morrie's insistence, Mitch attempts to restore his relationship with his brother Peter who lives in Spain. For many years, Peter has refused his family's help in battling pancreatic cancer and insists on seeking treatment alone. Mitch calls Peter and leaves numerous phone messages, though the only reply he receives from his brother is a curt message in which Peter insists he is fine, and reminds Mitch that he does not want to talk about his illness. Morrie prophetizes that Mitch will once more become close with his brother, a prophecy which, after Morrie's death, is realized. At Morrie's funeral, Mitch recalls his promise to continue his conversations with his professor and conducts a silent dialogue with Morrie in his head. Mitch had expected such a dialogue to feel awkward, however this communication feels far more natural than he had ever expected.

Character List Mitch Albom - Morrie's former student at Brandeis University, and the narrator of the book. After having abandoned his dreams of becoming a famous musician, he is disgusted by his desire for financial success and material wealth, though neither fill the void and unhappiness he feels. He has been working himself nearly to death, and suddenly finds himself out of a job when the staff at the newspaper he writes for decides to strike. Each Tuesday, he learns from Morrie, his that he needs to reassess his life, and to value love over money, and happiness over success.

Read an in-depth analysis of Mitch Albom. Morrie Schwartz - Mitch's favorite professor from Brandeis University, and the focus of the book, Morrie now suffers from ALS, a debilitating, incurable disease which ravages his body, but, cruelly, leaves him intellectually lucid. He had taught sociology at Brandeis, and continues to teach it to Mitch, instructing him on "The Meaning of Life," and how to accept death and aging. After a childhood in which affection was largely absent, he thrives on physical contact as a baby would. He has a passion for dancing and music, and is quick to cry, especially since the onset of his disease. He does not suffocate his emotions, but shares them openly, and rejects the popular cultural norms in favor of creating his own system of beliefs. Mitch portrays him as a man of ultimate wisdom.

Read an in-depth analysis of Morrie Schwartz. Ted Koppel - One of the most famous living television interviewers, Koppel conducts three interviews with Morrie for the news show "Nightline." He is surprised when Morrie asks him personal questions just after they have met, though he immediately seems to like Morrie, and eventually grows to call him a friend. He is moved almost to tears during his last interview with Morrie, having deconstructed what Morrie had called his "narcissistic" television personality. Charlotte - Morrie's caring wife, who, at his insistence, keeps her job as a professor at M.I.T. throughout Morrie's illness. Janine - Mitch's patient wife who willingly takes a phone call from Morrie, whom she has never met, and insists upon joining Mitch on his next Tuesday visit. Although she usually does not sing upon request, she does for Morrie, and moves him to tears with her beautiful voice. Peter - Mitch's younger brother who lives in Spain. Peter flies to various European cities seeking treatment for his pancreatic cancer, though he refuses any help from his family, who he has for the most part estranged himself from. He is reluctant when Mitch first tries to reestablish a relationship with him, but eventually warms.

Read an in-depth analysis of Peter. Charlie - Morrie's dispassionate father who immigrated to America to escape the Russian Army. Charlie raises his children on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and works in the fur business, though he seldom finds jobs and earns barely enough money to feed his family. He shows Morrie and his brother David little attention, and no affection whatsoever, and insists that Morrie keep his mother's death a secret from David, as he wants his son to believe that his stepmother, Eva, is his biological mother. He dies after having run away from muggers, and Morrie must travel to New York to identify his body at the city morgue. David - Morrie's younger brother who, after their mother's death, is sent with Morrie to a small hotel in the woods of Connecticut. There, he develops polio, seemingly just after he and Morrie have spent a night frolicking outside in the rain. Although his paralysis has nothing to do with their night in the rain, Morrie and blames himself for David's paralysis. Eva - The kind, caring immigrant woman who Charlie marries after Morrie's mother dies. She gives Morrie and his brother David the love and affection they have so longed for, and instills in Morrie his love of books and desire for education. Maurie Stein - A good friend of Morrie's who sends some of Morrie's aphorisms to a Boston Globe reporter who eventually publishes a feature story on Morrie. The reporter's article prompts Ted Koppel to ask Morrie for an interview. Norman - An old friend of Morrie's who he has long been estranged from. He had been an artist, and had sculpted a bust of Morrie, a deft depiction of his features. He eventually moved away, and shortly thereafter, did not send his regards to Morrie or Charlotte although he knew that Charlotte would be undergoing a serious surgery. Because of his carelessness, Morrie forfeits his friendship with him and refuses to accept his apology, which he regrets, especially after his death a few years following their break up. 65

Connie - Morrie's home health aide who is always there to assist Morrie in going to the bathroom, getting into his chair, and eating his meals. She is in disbelief when O.J. Simpson is voted not guilty by the court jury. Al Axelrad- A rabbi from Brandeis and a long-time friend of Morrie's. He performs Morrie's funeral service. Rob and Jon - Morrie's two adult sons who, though they live far, often travel to Boston to visit Morrie, especially as his condition worsens. Tony - Morrie's home care worker who helps him in and out of his swimming suit.

Analysis of Major Characters Morrie Schwartz The title character of Tuesdays With Morrie has spent most of his life as a professor of sociology at Brandeis University, a position he has fallen into only "by default." He is an excellent teacher, and retires only after he begins to lose control of his body to ALS, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, also known as Lou Gherig's disease. The disease ravages his body, but, ironically, leaves his mind as lucid as ever. He realizes that his time is running out, and that he must share his wisdom on "The Meaning of Life" with the world before it is too late to do so. Mitch serves as a vehicle through which he can convey this wisdom, to Mitch personally, and, more indirectly, to a larger audience which he reaches after his death by means of the book itself. He and Mitch plan for the book during his dying days, deeming it their "final thesis together." He is also able to reach a vast audience through his interviews with Ted Koppel, which are broadcast nation-wide on ABC- TV's "Nightline."

Morrie has an unmistakable knack for reaching through to the human essence of every individual he befriends. He is even able to deconstruct Koppel, who is a thick-skinned national celebrity. He does so by asking Koppel what he feels is "close to his heart." Love is his main method of communication. Just as he reaches Koppel through his thick celebrity skin, he reaches Mitch through his dense veneer of professionalism and greed. He sees that Mitch has surrendered his sense of self to the beliefs of popular culture, and urges him to reclaim the kind, caring young man he once was at Brandeis. In telling Mitch stories of his life experiences and personal beliefs, he teaches him to reject the corrupt mores endorsed by popular culture in favor of his personal, ethical system of values. He does not immerse himself in the media as most of America does, but instead invests himself in people and their potential to love. Morrie also chooses to react against popular cultural norms in his acceptance of his own debilitating disease and imminent death. He has lived and loved to his fullest extent, and is intent on continuing to do so as he dies. Having always lived as a fiercely independent man, it is difficult for him to rely on others for all of his basic needs, though he refuses to be embarrassed by his physical shortcomings, and tries in earnest to enjoy "being a baby again." In his childhood, he has been deprived of love and attention, and now that he is once again reliant on others as he was in his infancy, he thrives on the love and physical affection provided by his friends and family. Mitch Albom Mitch is a man with a good heart who has surrendered his dreams of becoming a musician to dreams of material wealth and professional success. He has grown disillusioned and values money over love. After working himself nearly to death, leaving little time for himself or his wife Janine, the union to which he belongs at the Detroit newspaper he works for goes on a long strike, and for the first time, he finds himself with neither work nor a steady paycheck. Upon learning of the strike, he grows increasingly frustrated by the career and life decisions he has made, and experiences a life-altering epiphany in which he realizes that he needs to change. He wants a chance at self-redemption, a chance to reassess his priorities so that he may recreate for himself a fulfilling life, enriched with people and activities that give him meaning and purpose.

It is only with Morrie's encouragement that Mitch is able to realize the time he has wasted in all of the years he has immersed himself in work that now seems relatively meaningless. With each week he travels to visit Morrie and listen to his lessons, his view of what he has missed and what he must change in his life becomes more lucid. As he watches Morrie die, he realizes that, like his professor, he wants to die knowing that he has lived his life to its fullest extent, certain that he has loved and forgiven himself and others as often and as sincerely as he could. He sees in Morrie the man he aspires to be, a man who values love over money, and people over tabloid gossip and superficial vanity. It is because of Morrie's influence that he is able to change his own life and outlook to become more like his professor, his mentor, who has encouraged him to be loving and kind since his college days, when he walked around campus with a veneer of toughness. Only Morrie can penetrate the toughness that has grown around Mitch's heart, which he ultimately succeeds in doing. Peter Mitch's younger brother, Peter lives in Spain after having moved to Europe immediately after graduating from high school. He is now suffering from pancreatic cancer, and flies to various European cities seeking treatment. However, he continually refuses to accept help from his family, namely from Mitch, as he has, for the most part, estranged himself from them after his departure from the United States. He does not want help from Mitch or any other member of his family presumably because he has too much pride to accept it. Growing up, he earned a reputation as the family bad boy, as where Mitch had been the family's clean-cut, straight-A student. Mitch's brother is a man who does not want help from a family he has deserted, and who feels that he must prove himself and his independence to them.

Much like Mitch had during his college years at Brandeis, Peter protects himself with a thick veneer of toughness. He has not asked for help from his family since his high school graduation, and has no intention of doing so as an adult. When Mitch contacts him, he is very reluctant to reestablish a relationship with his brother, and leaves a curt message that he is doing just fine and does not need anyone else's help. He also reminds Mitch that he does not want to talk about his illness. But as Mitch learns from Morrie, everyone, to some degree, needs other people to survive, thus the quote by Auden which Morrie recites numerous times during his lessons with Mitch, "Love or perish." Despite his fierce independence and refusal of help, Peter also needs the love of friends and family to survive his cancer. He realizes this after Mitch is persistent in his attempts to speak with him. Mitch does not contact his brother so that he may pity or dote on him because of his cancer, but because he wants to rekindle some aspect of the loving relationship they shared as children. Themes, Motifs, and Symbols Themes The Rejection of Popular Cultural Mores in Favor of Self-created Values

Each of Morrie's lessons contributes to a larger, all-encompassing message that each individual, Mitch especially, should reject popular cultural values, and instead develop his own. As Morrie sees it, popular culture is a dictator under which the human community must suffer. In his own life, Morrie has fled this cultural dictatorship in favor of creating his own culture founded on love, acceptance, and open communication. He develops his own culture as a revolt against the media-driven greed, violence and superficiality which has tarnished the mores promoted by popular culture. Morrie encourages Mitch to free himself of this corrupt, dictatorial culture in favor of his own, and it is only when he does that he begins to reassess his life and rediscover fulfillment. "Love Or Perish"

Morrie recites a quote by his favorite poet, W. H. Auden, to encompass one of his most important lessons to Mitch: in the absence of love, there is a void that can be filled only by loving human relationships. When love abounds, Morrie says, a person can experience no higher sense of fulfillment. Throughout his fourteen

Tuesday lessons with Mitch, Morrie divulges that love is the essence of every person, and every relationship, and that to live without it, as Auden says, is to live with nothing. The importance of love in his life is especially clear to Morrie as he nears his final days, for without the meticulous care of those he loves, and who love him, he would perish. Morrie clings to life not because he is afraid of dying or because he fears what will become of him in the afterlife, but because his greatest dying wish is to share his story with Mitch so that he may share it with the world. Morrie clings just long enough to divulge the essence of his story, then releases himself to death, leaving Mitch and his audience with the message that love brings meaning to experience, and that without it, one may as well be dead. Acceptance Through Detachment

In his quest to accept his impending death, Morrie consciously "detaches himself from the experience" when he suffers his violent coughing spells, all of which come loaded with the possibility of his last breath. Morrie derives his method of detachment from the Buddhist philosophy that one should not cling to things, as everything that exists is impermanent. In detaching, Morrie is able to step out of his tangible surroundings and into his own state of consciousness, namely for the sake of gaining perspective and composure in a stressful situation. Morrie does not intend to stop feeling or experiencing in his detachment, but instead, wants to experience wholly, for it is only then that he is able to let go, to detach from a life-threatening experience which renders him fearful and tense. He does not want to die feeling upset, and in these frightening moments, detaches so that he may accept the impermanence of his life and embrace his death, which he knows may come at any moment. Motifs The Media

The media is continually portrayed in Tuesdays With Morrie as being inherently evil, sucking Mitch dry of his passion and ambition, and feeding the public stories of murder and hatred that have ravaged the goodness of the world's general community. Mitch, who is out of work due to a unionized strike at the Detroit newspaper he writes for, continually notices the horrific events reported by the media he for a long time has been a part of. He reads about homicides, torture, theft, and a dozen other gruesome crimes that serve to juxtapose the evil of the popular culture with the goodness of the world Morrie has created for himself. The O.J. Simpson murder trial also makes multiple appearances throughout the book, and provides Mitch with evidence to support his claim that the the general populous has become dependent on, and somewhat addicted to, media coverage of relatively meaningless stories, stories that contribute nothing to personal development or goodness as a human being. Reincarnation and Renewal

Reincarnation and renewal are presented as facets of both life and death; in life, Morrie teaches that a person is ever-changing, and in death, looks forward to some form of new life with the natural progression of the life cycle. With Morrie as his mentor, Mitch is able to reincarnate himself in life, transforming a man who was once motivated by material wealth into a man who is motivated by a passion to love, and to emulate the man who has so touched his life. Morrie reveals that despite his old age, he is still changing, as every person does until their dying day. Food

Each Tuesday, Mitch brings with him a bag of food from the grocery store for Morrie to enjoy, as he knows that his professor's favorite hobby, second to dancing, is eating. Morrie can no longer dance, and soon, he can no longer eat the food that Mitch brings him, either, as his health and strength have deteriorated so much, he can no longer ingest solids. The food that he brings for Morrie serves as a reminder for Mitch of the days he and his professor would eat together in the cafeteria at Brandeis, when he had been young and passionate, and Morrie energetic and in good health. Now, Mitch has been corrupted by commercial wealth, 68

and Morrie by his illness. Although he knows that Morrie can no longer eat solids, Mitch continues to bring food each week because he so fears Morrie's fast-approaching death. The food Mitch brings him acts as a means by which to cling to Morrie and the fond memories Mitch has of his favorite professor. Mitch also feels that food is the only gift he can give to Morrie, and feels helpless as to how to soothe him any other way. Symbols Pink hibiscus plant

As Morrie's body deteriorates, so does the condition of the hibiscus plant. The plant's pink petals wither and fall as Morrie grows increasingly dependent on his aides and on oxygen. As his death approaches, so does the death of the plant. It is continually used as a metaphor for Morrie's life and for life itself. Like the plant, humans, Morrie in particular, experience a natural life cycle, which inevitably ends in death. Morrie must accept this inevitable fate, as must Mitch. Waves on the ocean

Morrie recounts a story he had heard about a small wave seeing the waves ahead of him crash on the shore, disappearing into nothingness. He suddenly brims with fear upon the realization that he too will soon 'crash on the shore' and, die as the wave fears he will. This little wave confides his fear in another wave who comforts him with the news that he will not crash and die, but will instead return to become a small part of the larger ocean. This small wave is symbolic of Morrie, as he too is on the brink of crashing into a theoretical shore, a symbolic embodiment of his death. Like the wave, Morrie is comforted by the knowledge that he will soon return to something larger in the afterlife. Morrie's affinity for the parable denotes his belief in a form of reincarnation, which he understands as intrinsic part of the natural life cycle. Morrie's bed

Morrie's aphorism, "When you're in bed, you're dead," eventually comes true. Throughout Morrie's struggle with ALS, he refuses to stay in bed, as he sees it as a form of surrender, and instead opts to rest in the chair in his study. Morrie intends to live his last days as fully as he can, and knows that if he is to remain in bed, he will surrender himself to death by forfeiting the simple enjoyment he gets from lying in his study. In his study, photographs of loved ones, and the books he has collected in his lifetime surround Morrie. There, he can look outside of his window, and though he cannot go outside, he admires the beauty of the seasons and the plant and animal life outdoors. It is not until Morrie's final days that he does stay in bed, when he has at last accepted and readied himself for death.

The Curriculum - The Syllabus Summary The Curriculum The narrator, Mitch Albom, gives a brief introductory explanation of his weekly meetings each Tuesday with Morrie, his former college professor. He depicts these meetings as a continuation of his studies with Morrie, each of them a separate class on the meaning of life. The class had been held in Morrie's home, in his study, where he had watched a pink hibiscus plant shed its leaves. This plant serves as an important symbol throughout the book. Mitch reflects that no grades had been given, and that no books had been required for his final class with Morrie. A funeral, he says, had been held in place of a graduation, and his final thesis paper is the book that follows.

In a flashback, Mitch remembers his graduation from Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. On a hot Saturday afternoon in the late spring of 1979, hundreds of graduating students sit on the main campus lawn in blue nylon robes. After he receives his diploma, Mitch approaches Morrie, his favorite professor,

and introduces him to his parents. Mitch describes Morrie as a very small, fragile-looking older man with crooked teeth and a big smile. Morrie tells Mitch's parents that their son has taken every one of his classes, and that they have a "very special boy," a compliment that embarrasses Mitch. Before he leaves, Mitch presents Morrie with a tan briefcase that he has had engraved with Morrie's initials. Mitch wants to give a special gift to Morrie so that they will never forget one another. Morrie hugs Mitch and tells him to keep in touch, which Mitch promises to do. When they break from the hug, Mitch notices that Morrie is crying. The Syllabus Morrie's "death sentence" had arrived in the summer of 1994, when he had given up dancing. He had loved to dance, regardless of what kind of music was being played. In his health, he would go to a church in Harvard Square each Wednesday night for an event called "Dance Free," which catered mainly to students and other young people. Morrie, a distinguished doctor of sociology, would go in sweat pants and a T-shirt, and dance all night until he was soaked with sweat. However, when Morrie had developed asthma in his sixties, the dancing stopped. One day as he was along the Charles River, a cold gust of wind had left him breathless, and he was rushed to the hospital and injected with adrenaline. A few years later, he had trouble walking and fell down the stairs at a theater. Most had seen these health problems as common symptoms of old age, but Morrie had known that it was something more serious, as he had dreams of dying and was weary all the time. Doctors had found nothing wrong from his blood and urine samples, though after testing a muscle biopsy, had diagnosed Morrie with a neurological problem. On a hot day in August of 1994, Morrie and his wife, Charlotte, had been told by his doctor that he was suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Lou Gherig's disease, an incurable illness which attacks the neurological system and causes loss of muscle control. The doctor had patiently answered Morrie and Charlotte's questions for nearly two hours, and had given them informational pamphlets to study. Morrie had felt as if the world had come to an end. Shortly thereafter, Morrie could no longer drive, or walk without the help of a cane. He had swam regularly, though he had needed his home care worker, Tony, to dress and undress him. That fall, Morrie had taught his last course at Brandeis. He had told the class that there was a chance he might not make it to the end of the semester, and that he would understand if any students should want to drop the class.

Mitch compares ALS to a lit candle, saying it "melts your nerves and leaves your body a pile of wax." Your soul, he says, is awake, though your body is completely deadened. Morrie's doctors guessed that it would take two years for his body to deteriorate completely, though Morrie had known it would be less, and had decided that his own death will be his final project. In time, Morrie cannot even go to the bathroom by himself, which would be embarrassing for most people, though, eventually, it is not for Morrie. After attending a colleagues' funeral, Morrie is depressed that the deceased never get the opportunity to hear the good things said about them at their funerals. Thus, he decides to hold a "living funeral" for himself, which is a great success. One woman reads a poem about a "tender sequoia" that moves Morrie to tears. Analysis In nearly every chapter of the book, Mitch flashes back to his days at Brandeis University. These flashbacks provide a clear picture of Mitch during his youth, a picture that starkly contrasts the money-hungry businessman he has grown to be in his adulthood. The flashbacks also help to explain why Mitch feels compelled to see his professor, as he knows that he can help him to regain the goodness and faith he possessed during his college years. Also important is the background information that the flashbacks provide about the relationship between Morrie and Mitch prior to Mitch's adult conversion. Thus, the reader is able to juxtapose their former relationship with the one they have rekindled.

In his flashback to his graduation from Brandeis, Mitch's feelings of love and admiration for Morrie, his favorite professor, are unmistakable. It is clear that the two men have shared a unique relationship, which is gradually revealed in the flashbacks. The tears Morrie sheds when Mitch gives him the briefcase indicate his 70

unabashed emotion, which intensifies with the onset of his disease. Morrie is a man who embraces emotion instead of stifling it, and throughout the book, he encourages Mitch to do the same. The briefcase itself is symbolic of the rare relationship that Mitch and Morrie share. Their relationship has transcended the typical professor-student relationship, which is normally distant and professional, to become an intimate, loving friendship. Mitch and Morrie have chosen to go beyond the typically impersonal relationship of a student and his teacher; they are similar to the business-like leather briefcase that has been engraved with a personal emblem unlike any other.

Morrie's personality is further revealed when Mitch relays the story of his former professor's wild nights at "Dance Free" in Harvard Square. Morrie is an old man with an exceptionally youthful, enduring spirit, which perseveres throughout his illness and will play a key role in his Tuesday lessons with Mitch. When the body that contains Morrie's youthful spirit is prescribed an expiration date by medical professionals, Morrie surely feels as if a part of him has been killed, as he can no longer enjoy even dancing, his long-time favorite hobby. Upon learning of his illness, Morrie wonders why the world does not stop and acknowledge his illness. He is perturbed at the sight of men and women going about their daily routine, namely because his routine has been capped. Life as he knows it is essentially over, and the story that follows tells of how Morrie copes with his own death sentence. Morrie is a very honest man, and throughout the book, must rely on his friends, family, and aides to do nearly everything for him, even the most personal necessities, such as undressing, which Tony must do for him in the pool locker room. Despite this dependency, Morrie is not embarrassed, as he rejects the cultural laws that deem natural functions and natural needs inappropriate or taboo. When Morrie tells his students that he will understand if they choose to drop his class, he is acknowledging the modern culture's fear of death, which he takes strides to overcome.

The Student - The Audiovisual Summary The Student

Although Mitch had promised at graduation to keep in touch with Morrie, he has not. Over the years, he had lost touch with most of his college friends, as well as the man he had been in college, and the values he had upheld. He had abandoned his long-time dream of becoming a famous pianist after several years of failed attempts, and after the death of his favorite uncle who had taught him music, among many other life lessons. Mitch had admired his uncle very much, and had modeled himself after him. He had died a slow, painful death from pancreatic cancer, and watching him die had made Mitch feel helpless.

When his uncle asks Mitch if he will watch over his children after he has died, Mitch tells him not to talk of such things. Only a few weeks later, his uncle dies, and Mitch's outlook on life is forever changed. He now feels that the time is precious, and must be used to its fullest potential, which, at the time, he believes to be financial success. He earns a master's degree in journalism and takes the first job offered to him. Determined not to live the boring corporate life his uncle had led, Mitch avoids such repetition by taking various freelancing positions, and is constantly moving from city to city. When he is given a column by the Detroit Free Press, Mitch is swamped with money and success, but feels unfulfilled. He spends all of his time working, and never takes a moment to enjoy himself.

It is during this time that Mitch meets Janine, his future wife whom he marries after a seven-year courtship. He promises her that they will someday have a family, though he dedicates all of his time to his work and none to Janine or the family they had hoped to have. Mitch throws away the mail he receives from his alma

matter, Brandeis University, and does not know about Morrie's illness until one night as he is flipping the channels on his television.

The Audiovisual

In March of 1995, Morrie is interviewed by Ted Koppel, the host of ABC-TV's news program, "Nightline." Koppel arrives at Morrie's house in West Newton, Massachusetts in a limousine, with his television crew behind him. Morrie is now confined to a wheelchair, as he cannot walk. Despite the progression of his illness, Morrie refuses to get depressed and writes small philosophies about accepting one's own death. Maurie Stein, a friend of his, sends some of these aphorisms to a Boston Globe reporter who publishes a feature story on Morrie. The article had prompted Koppel's visit.

Everyone is excited by Koppel's presence, though Morrie remains calm. He tells Koppel that he needs to ask a few personal, introductory questions before he will agree to do the interview. When Koppel concedes, Morrie asks him to mention something that is "close to his heart." Koppel mentions his children, and quotes Marcus Aurelius. He then asks Morrie about his show, which Morrie has seen only twice. When Koppel asks him what he had thought about it, Morrie tells him he had seemed like a narcissist. Koppel jokingly replies that he is too ugly to be a narcissist, and the men laugh.

During the interview, Morrie does not wear makeup or fancy clothes, as he does not want to convey the message that he is embarrassed by death and aging. He tells Koppel he wants to die with dignity, and live the rest of his life the way he wants to. Some mornings, Morrie says he cries out of anger and bitterness, but is renewed by his ambition to live. He accidentally calls Koppel "Fred" instead of "Ted," but quickly corrects himself. Morrie tells of his growing dependency on others, and admits that his worst fear is that someday, he will not be able to wipe himself after he has gone to the bathroom. By chance, Mitch sees this television program as he is flipping channels one night, a chance that serves as the catalyst for the reunion between him and his old professor.

Mitch flashes back to the spring of 1976, when he has his first class with Morrie. In Morrie's classroom, he wonders if he should take the class, as it will be hard to cut with so few students. Morrie takes attendance and asks Mitch if he prefers to be called "Mitch" or "Mitchell," a question he has never been asked by one of his teachers. He replies that his friends call him "Mitch," and Morrie, after deciding on "Mitch," replies that one day, he hopes he will call him a friend. Analysis

The third chapter of the book, The Student, explores Mitch as a character, and how he has transformed from an ambitious, hopeful young man into a money- grubbing professional who has abandoned his long- harbored dreams for financial security. It is clear that Mitch feels disconnected with the man he was in his youth, but desperately wants to reestablish a connection with his forgotten dreams and values. Mitch had abandoned his dreams at a very vulnerable period in his life, as he had grown increasingly discouraged by his failure playing the nightclub circuit, and to compound his disillusionment, had lost his favorite uncle, to whom he was very close. More than any other factor, it is his uncle's death that Mitch finds the most disturbing, and from then on sees life as a race to beat the clock, sucking dry every moment of life to win money and power in the business world. Mitch feels helpless as he watches his uncle die slowly and painfully of cancer, and yearns for some sense of control in his own life, which he eventually gains when he adopts a steady work routine and gains financial security, two perks absent from his piano touring days.

Mitch's relationship to his uncle is comparable to his relationship with Morrie, in that they have both affected his general outlook on life. However, it is vital to notice the difference between the two men and 72

Mitch's reaction to each of their lifestyles. Mitch makes a conscious and earnest effort to be as unlike his uncle as he can possibly be, opting for various jobs in various locales so that he may avoid the terrible monotony of corporate life he had seen his uncle suffer through. However, Mitch does say that he models himself after his uncle, as he models himself after Morrie. Both men come across as kind and giving, and both have shaped Mitch as a person. In his reunion with Morrie, though, he realizes that by trying not to live the life his uncle had led, he has only done himself a disservice. He has immersed himself in work, not love, and is therefore unsatisfied. Seeking happiness in love versus seeking happiness in money serves as one of Morrie's most important lessons, as it is repeated numerous times throughout the book.

Morrie's interview shows his refusal to adhere to the rules of social culture. He is not dazzled by Ted Koppel, as is everyone else who meets him. Instead, Morrie sees each person for what he or she is: simply and purely human. Unlike the others who feed into America's media-soaked culture, Morrie treats Koppel as he would any other man. Morrie sees the humanity in Ted Koppel, not the celebrity, and tries to extract this simple humanity when he asks Koppel what is "close to his heart." Morrie seems to be asking also why the culture has forgotten love and remembered money. Why, he essentially asks, has the importance shifted from people to dollar bills, to fame? When Morrie admits that he had thought of Koppel as a narcissist — a vain, shallow, selfish person who is capable of loving only himself — he indirectly expresses his distaste for the modern media circus and the way in which the culture readily buys into it.

The Orientation, The Classroom Summary The Orientation As Mitch pulls up to Morrie's house in his rental car, he is on the phone with his producer. Morrie sits in a wheelchair on his front lawn waving at Mitch, though Mitch slinks down in the seat of his car and finishes the conversation with his producer before he greets him, their first reunion in sixteen years. He regrets this, and wishes he had immediately dropped the phone and run to hug and kiss his professor. Mitch is surprised at the intense affection with which Morrie greets him, and, hugging him, feels that no trace remains of the good student Morrie remembers him as being. Inside, Connie, Morrie's aide, serves the men food and administers Morrie's medication. After he takes his pills, Morrie asks Mitch if he shall tell him what it feels like to be dying. This conversation, then unbeknownst to Mitch, marks the beginning of their first lesson.

Mitch flashes back to his freshman year of college. He is younger than most of the students and tries to look older by wearing an old gray sweatshirt and dangling an unlit cigarette from his lips, even though he does not smoke. He builds a facade of toughness, though it is Morrie's "softness" that he finds so inviting. He enrolls for another class with Morrie, who he reports is an easy grader. One year, Morrie gave A's to all the young men who were in jeopardy of being drafted to fight in the Vietnam War. Mitch nicknames Morrie "Coach," and Morrie tells him that he can be his player, as Mitch can play the parts that Morrie is now too old for. They eat together in the cafeteria, and Mitch notes that Morrie is a slob when he chews; during their friendship, he has harbored two great desires for Morrie: to hug him and to give him a napkin. The Classroom Morrie's appearance on "Nightline" has made him somewhat of a celebrity, and many people call and ask to come visit. This makes Mitch remember the college friends he has lost touch with. He wonders what has happened to him in the time that has lapsed between college and the present. Essentially, he has traded the dreams he had in youth for wealth and success. However, his financial success alone does not satisfy him. Morrie struggles to eat his meal, and when he is finished, tells Mitch that many of his visitors are unhappy, which he thinks is a result of the culture. Morrie expresses the gratitude he feels for having love around him while he dies, which he says is better than living unhappily. Mitch is shocked by his lack of self-pity, namely the gratitude he feels for his slow, painful death. He is forever haunted by Morrie's explanation that he will

die of suffocation, as the ALS will eventually attack his lungs. Mitch avoids an honest response, and Morrie urges him to accept death, as it is clear that he has no more than five months left to live. To prove his imminent death, Morrie demonstrates for Mitch a test that his doctor asked him to take. He first asks Mitch to inhale, then exhale while counting to the highest number he can. Mitch counts to seventy. Morrie can only reach eighteen before he must gasp for air. When he first saw the doctor, Morrie was able to count to twenty- three. At the end of the visit, Morrie asks Mitch to promise to come and see him again, as he did at Mitch's graduation sixteen years before. Mitch promises he will, and tries not to think of the last time he made and broke this same promise.

In another flashback to his college days, Mitch remembers Morrie's love of books. One afternoon, he complains to Morrie of feeling confused about what is expected of him versus what he wants for himself. In reply, Morrie explains his theory on the "tension of opposites," meaning that life pulls alternately back and forth, like a wrestling match. Love, he says, always wins. Analysis Mitch's behavior upon his reunion with Morrie reveals the enormous transformation he has undergone since he has last seen him. He has not seen his beloved professor for sixteen years, yet he waits to finish the phone conversation he is having with his producer before he greets Morrie. The mannerisms and general behavior that Mitch exhibits at the beginning of the book differ from his behavior as described in the flashbacks to his college years to understand the drastic transformation he has undergone in growing older. Mitch has yet to undergo another transformation, a sort of reversion, in his new relationship with Morrie. Even during his college days, Mitch had been concerned with impressing others, and did so by hiding his age behind a facade of toughness. It seems that even now, in his adulthood, Mitch hides behind this same screen. There is only a small trace of tenderness in his character, a trace that is eventually drawn out by Morrie. But prior to his reunion with his professor, Mitch seems driven only by the prospect of financial success and professional power, obvious when he chooses to remain on the phone with his producer, though Morrie sits waving at him from his lawn. Afterwards, however, Mitch is ridden with guilt for making this choice to ignore a beloved friend for a business prospect, and it is this glimmer of remorse that marks Mitch's remaining traces of goodness. His reunion with Morrie helps him to realize that his priorities are backwards, and to eventually tap the goodness that he has somehow lost during his years as a cutthroat journalist.

It is implied that Mitch reunites with his professor because, upon seeing his interview on "Nightline," remembers the good student — and the good person — he had been during his time with Morrie at Brandeis. Mitch is nostalgic for his former self, and seems not to recognize the man he has become. Just as Morrie's "softness" had been attractive to him in college, Mitch now needs this compassion and tenderness from Morrie to regain some sense of the man he had been, the man he would like to be. The relationship that Mitch and Morrie share, however, is not one-sided. Morrie, too benefits from his time with Mitch, as he is able to live in vicarious spirit through Mitch and the escapades he is now experiencing for the first time in his young life. This rare dynamic between Mitch and Morrie is embodied by the nicknames they call one another, Morrie being the "coach" and Mitch being the "player." Morrie has lived a long, experienced life and passes his experiences on to Mitch, so that he may learn from them, as Morrie has, and literally play them out in his life.

Although he has learned much from Morrie, Mitch is still learning his most pressing lesson: to reject the cultural norm if it is not conducive to one's own happiness. Mitch is clearly entangled in the norms of culture, living the life of the young, successful professional who is too overrun with work to think of anything else. His trouble with breaking from these cultural norms is most obvious in his hesitation to be honest about death and the physical embarrassment that comes with aging. Eventually, with more Tuesday

visits, Mitch will learn from Morrie how to break free of these norms, and will gradually come to accept Morrie's physical debilitation and impending death as a natural part of the life cycle.

Taking Attendance - The First Tuesday: We Talk about the World Summary Taking Attendance A few weeks following his reunion with Morrie, Mitch flies to London to cover the Wimbledon tennis tournament for the newspaper he works for. Typically, Mitch reads the British tabloids while he is in England, but on this visit, he remembers Morrie and his inevitable death. Mitch thinks of how many hours he has spent on mindless, meaningless endeavors, such as reading the tabloids, and instead wants to use his time as Morrie does, immersed in those endeavors that will enrich his life.

Mitch also remembers what Morrie had told him about rejecting a society's culture if it is not conducive to one's own development. Indeed, Morrie had developed his own culture, involving himself in discussion groups, friends, books, and dancing. Morrie had also created a project called Greenhouse, which provided the poor with mental health services. Unlike Mitch, Morrie had not wasted the precious years of his life. Mitch had developed his own culture of working himself to death, having dedicated his life to earning money. When he is knocked over by a cutthroat swarm of reporters chasing tennis player Andre Agassi and his girlfriend, actress Brooke Shields, Mitch is reminded of Morrie's adage that many people devote their lives to chasing the wrong thing. Mitch has been chasing money, and now realizes he must instead chase love and community, an endeavor that will give him purpose and meaning in his life. When Mitch returns to Detroit, he learns that the newspaper union to which he belongs has gone on strike, which means his piece will not be published, nor will he be paid for the grueling work he had done while in London. Suddenly, Mitch is left without a job and without a purpose. Depressed, Mitch calls Morrie and arranges to meet with him the following Tuesday. Mitch Flashes back to his sophomore year of college, when he takes two courses with Morrie as his professor. They meet outside of the classroom to talk, and share a relationship which Mitch has never before experienced with an adult. In talking, Mitch will divulge his problems and concerns to Morrie, and, in turn, Morrie will try to pass on some kind of life lesson. He warns Mitch that money is not the most important thing in the world, and that he must aspire to be "fully human." Morrie acts as a father figure to Mitch, as he cannot have such conversations with his own father, who would like him to be a lawyer, a profession Morrie hates. Instead, Morrie encourages Mitch to pursue his dream of being a famous musician and to continue practicing piano. The First Tuesday: We Talk about the World Mitch remembers how much Morrie loves food, and brings an arsenal of treats to his first Tuesday visit. Even in college, Mitch and Morrie had met routinely on Tuesdays, mostly to discuss Mitch's thesis, which Mitch says he wrote at Morrie's suggestion. They slip into conversation easily, as they did when Mitch was in college. When Morrie must go to the bathroom, his aid, Connie, helps him. He remembers telling Ted Koppel in his interview that he feared eventually needing someone else to wipe him after using the toilet, as it is the ultimate sign of dependency. He tells Mitch that this day is fast approaching. However, Morrie admits he is trying to enjoy the process of being a baby once more. Morrie explains that he now feels an affinity with all people who suffer, even people he reads about in the news, such as the civilian victims of the war in Bosnia. He now cries even for those he has never met before; he admits he cries all the time. Mitch, however, never cries, but says that Morrie has been trying to get him to cry since his college days. Morrie tells Mitch that the most important thing to learn in life is how to give out love, and how to let it come in. He quotes Levine, saying, "Love is the only rational act." Mitch listens intently and takes heart, as he kisses Morrie when he leaves, an unusual display of affection on his part. When they part, Morrie asks Mitch if he will return next the Tuesday.

Again, Mitch flashes back to college, recalling an experiment Morrie had done with his sociology class at Brandeis. For fifteen minutes, Morrie does not say a word and the room is uncomfortably and totally silent. Morrie breaks the silence by asking what is going on in the room, and a discussion about the effect of silence on human relations follows. Mitch is quiet throughout the class, as he is not comfortable with sharing his feelings. Morrie notices Mitch's reluctance to participate, and pulls him aside. He tells Mitch that he reminds him of himself when he was young, as he was also reluctant to reveal his emotions.

Analysis One of Morrie's most important lessons to Mitch is the idea of initiating one's own culture if the culture is not conducive to one's happiness and development. However, he seems confused as to how to create a culture of his own, as he has become so adjusted to buying into the modern social values Morrie essentially deems shallow and worthless. How, exactly, does one create his own culture? Mitch understands how Morrie has created his own culture which he has filled with friends, books, and dancing, and after arriving home from London, realizes that he must create his own culture and or wither away in one that has turned him cold and greedy.

Mitch mourns for Morrie's death, and, in a very real sense, his own. A part of Mitch has died since his college days, and he grows increasingly sad and nostalgic for that part of him with every Tuesday he talks with Morrie. Mitch feels as though he has wasted a part of his life, having been deadened to emotion and caring, and now wants to resuscitate the caring man he had been so that he will not waste any more "precious" years of his life, trudging through each day with a healthy body and a deadened spirit. Morrie however, suffers from just the opposite affliction, which, unlike Mitch's problem, is irreversible. Mitch is has the potential to revive his spirit and his kindness, and can redeem himself if he so chooses. Morrie, however, must inevitably suffer as a lively spirit trapped within a dying, withered body.

To make up for the years he has lived with a cold, deadened spirit, an emotional zombie on the run from love and after money, he acts on the remorse he feels for having wasted much of his life, and heeds Morrie's advice that he needs to live as a man who is "fully human." By "fully human," Morrie means a person who creates their own, however unselfish, culture in which they make love their first priority and money their last. To be fully human, in Morrie's terms, is to be kind, compassionate, and accepting — of others and and of oneself. In quoting Levin, who had said, "Love is the only rational act," Morrie means that love is the foremost human behavior that comes naturally to all, and to be "fully human" means not to suppress this urge to love. Love is so irrational, it could be argued, that it is, in itself, a rational act, even in all of its mystery. Like a newly born baby, Morrie cries often and needs just as much attention as a child would from his mother. Throughout the book, a repeated connection is made between children and the elderly, as both are completely dependent on others for their own survival. Morrie tries to enjoy the process of being a child once more because he revels in the love and attention he now receives because of his condition which the reader will soon learn was almost completely absent from his childhood. This love and attention is also absent in the lives of many adults, as the culture's rules regarding affection between adults is drastically different — and drastically scarce — compared to those for children and the elderly.

The Second (Feeling Sorry for Yourself )& Third Tuesday (Regrets) Summary The Second Tuesday: We Talk about Feeling Sorry for Yourself Mitch returns to spend a second Tuesday with Morrie, and this time decides not to buy a cell phone during the trip so that his colleagues cannot disturb his meaningful time with his old professor. The union at the

newspaper he works for in Detroit continues to strike, and he is therefore without a job. The strike situation had grown nasty; picketers had been arrested and beaten, and replacement workers had been hired.

Once again, Mitch has brought Morrie bags of delicious food. Now, Morrie is confined to his study, and keeps a bell by his side to signal for assistance. Mitch asks Morrie if he feels sorry for himself. Morrie replies that at times, he does, usually in the mornings. He mourns for his body and the control that he has lost, and cries if he needs to. Afterwards, however, Morrie moves on and recognizes how lucky he is to have time to say goodbye to his loved ones before he dies. He consciously limits the amount of time he spends pitying himself, as he knows he must enjoy the little life he has left. Mitch is astounded that Morrie has called himself lucky when he must endure such suffering. While Morrie is in the bathroom with his aide Connie, who must help him, Mitch looks through a Boston newspaper and reads disturbing news about murder and hatred. He puts the paper down when Morrie returns from the bathroom, and offers to help him back into his recliner, which he does. Holding Morrie in his arms, Mitch is moved in a way he cannot describe, only to say that he can feel the "seeds of death inside his shriveling frame." It is then that Mitch realizes that his time with Morrie is running out, and that he must do something about it.

In a flashback to his junior year of college, 1978, Mitch recalls the unusual "Group Process" class he took with Morrie. The class, which Mitch labels the "touchy-feely class," studies how the group of students interact with one another. On a typical day, one person will end up crying. In one exercise, the students test one another's trust and reliability by doing trust falls; one student will fall straight backwards and must rely on another student to catch them. Not one student can trust another until one girl falls without flinching. Morrie notes that the girl had closed her eyes, and says that this exercise serves as a metaphor for the secret to trust in relationships; one must sometimes trust blindly, relying only on what they feel to guide them in their decision-making. The Third Tuesday: We Talk about Regrets Again, Mitch arrives the following Tuesday with bags of food. This time, he has brought a tape recorder, as well. At first, Mitch feels that the tape recorder is intrusive and worries that it will make Morrie uncomfortable. But Morrie welcomes it, and insists that he wants Mitch to hear his story. Mitch recognizes that using the tape recorder is also an attempt to capture a remnant of Morrie to remember him by after his death. He wonders if Morrie has had any regrets since learning that he is dying. Morrie responds with a lesson on how the culture doesn't encourage people to think about death and regrets until they are nearing their dying day. While they are living, he says, they are concerned about egotistical things, but they should constantly stand back and assess their life to determine what is there and what is missing from it. Morrie mentions that often, people need others to push them in this particular direction, and Mitch realizes that Morrie is this person, his teacher. Mitch resolves to be the best student he can be. On the plane ride back to Detroit, he makes a list of common issues and questions about life and relationships that he plans to broach with Morrie. All of the questions he wants to pose seem to have no clear answers. He brings the list with him when he returns to Boston for his fourth visit with Morrie. It is a sweltering hot day in Boston, and the air conditioning is not working in the airport. Mitch notes that everyone in the airport terminal looks as though they could kill someone.

At the start of his senior year of college, Morrie had suggested to Mitch that he try an honors thesis. They discuss the possibility, and finally decide that Mitch will write a thesis on how America has adopted sports as a religion. By the spring, Mitch has completed the thesis, and Morrie congratulates him. He presents Mitch with the possibility of graduate school, which makes Mitch recognize that familiar "tension of opposites," as he wants to leave school, but is afraid to.

Analysis Mitch's gradual transformation of character, from a man driven by money to a man driven by love, is evident when he decides not to buy a cell phone on his second trip to visit Morrie. This is Mitch's first step towards creating his own loving, accepting, and forgiving culture. Morrie's self-created culture enables him to feel gratitude for his slow painful death, which, superficially, seems odd and outrageous. But given a deeper look, Morrie's gratitude is sensible. Unlike many others who have died, such as both of Morrie's parents, he has the opportunity to repent for the words and actions he regrets, and is able to express love and say goodbye to those he values most dearly in his dwindling life. Thus, Morrie does not feel lucky because he is suffering and will be martyred, but because he is aware of the little time he has left to do what he feels he needs to before it is too late. Mitch, for a long time, is in denial that Morrie is even dying, and is only honest with himself about Morrie's impending departure when he helps him back into his chair and feels the "seeds of death inside of his shriveling frame" as he holds his limp body in his arms. The image of seeds and plants, like the pink hibiscus in Morrie's study, growing and dying as people do, recurs throughout the book. These "seeds of death" that Mitch feels are inside of Morrie serve as a symbolic indication that Morrie is about to move on to something new; seedlings bring new life, and indeed, Morrie is about to embark on a leg of life's journey that he has not yet set foot in. Mitch notices evil and the potential for evil in the media and in his everyday surroundings, as he does when he reads about the murder and hatred in the newspaper, and when he notices the irritation on the faces of the people at the airport, who are so severely agitated by the heat, they look ready to kill. These passages in Tuesdays With Morrie string together to create a stark contrast between the popular social culture, which is inherently evil and driven by greed, and the invented culture that Morrie adheres to and that Mitch is slowly adopting, which is founded on love, civility, and understanding. When Morrie uses the trust fall exercise as a metaphor for trust in relationships, he means to teach his students that trustworthiness is a mutual quality shared by both partners. Morrie teaches the students that trust is blind; one can only trust another based on an instinctive feeling, not by any rational judgment or method of thinking. To trust someone is to close your eyes and fall back, hoping that the person your instincts have told you is trustworthy will catch you and keep you from harm. Morrie's lesson simplifies the complicated issue of trust and trustworthiness into an easily digestible activity for the students to learn from, as his teaching caters more to life lessons than the academic.

The Audiovisual - The Fourth Tuesday: We Talk about Death Summary The Audiovisual, Part Two Ted Koppel interviews Morrie for a second time. Koppel comments that Morrie "looks fine," and Morrie replies that only he can know the deterioration that is taking place daily, which is evident in his garbled speaking. Morrie explains that his love r elationships sustain his high spirits. He mentions a dear friend, Maurie Stein, who had sent Morrie's aphorisms to a reporter from the Boston Globe newspaper. The men had both been at Brandeis University during the early 1960's. Now, Maurie is deaf, and Morrie will soon be mute. Koppel asks how the two will communicate, and Morrie answers that they will hold hands; after thirty-five years of friendship, they do not need speech or hearing to communicate with one another.

Since his first appearance on "Nightline," Morrie has received letters from viewers across the country. One woman, a teacher, writes that she has a special class of nine young students, all of whom have lost a parent to untimely death. Morrie is moved to tears by the letter, as he recalls his mother's death when he was a boy. He cries unabashedly on camera, and tells Koppel that he still feels the pain he felt seventy years ago upon learning of his mother's death.

The Professor In a flashback to his childhood on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Morrie recalls reading the telegram that brought the news of his mother's death. Because his father, a Russian immigrant, could not read English, eight-year-old Morrie was the first to r ead the news, and the one to tell it to the rest of his family. On the way to the funeral, his aunt, who was in hysterics, asked Morrie what he would do without his mother, and what would become of him now, without her to care for him. At this, Morrie bur sts into tears. His mother had been ill for a while, though Morrie, being a child, thought he could make her illness go away by ignoring it. Morrie's father, Charlie, had come to America to escape the Russian Army. He seldom had work and the family had lived in absolute poverty. Following their mother's death, Morrie and his brother, David, were sent to live and work at a hotel in rura l Connecticut. One night, the boys played outside in the pouring rain. The next morning, David was unable to move his legs, as he had polio. However, Morrie thought that the rain had caused the paralysis, and had blamed himself for his brother's suffering . He went to the synagogue to pray for David and his deceased mother. Morrie's father was not at all affectionate with his sons, but his second wife, Eva, gave the boys the tenderness and caring they longed for. Despite their immense poverty, Eva had stressed the importance of education, which Morrie took very seriously . Morrie had been told by his father not to mention his mother at all, as he wanted David to think that Eva was his natural mother. Morrie was burdened by this demand, and kept the telegram that had been sent to inform them of his mother's death, the only proof she had ever existed. When Morrie was a teenager, his father had brought him to the fur factory where he worked to find him a job. Morrie was grateful that the factory could not hire him, as there were barely enough jobs for the adult workers. He hated the stifling, clinging air of the factory, and vowed never to do work that would exploit another. Thus, he had decided not to be a lawyer. Nor could he be a doctor, as he hated the sight of blood. By default, he had decided to become a teacher. Analysis

Communication without language serves as a prevalent theme throughout Tuesdays With Morrie, and is highlighted during his interview with Ted Koppel. Koppel seems mystified as to how a deaf man and a mute man could possibly communicate with one anot her, though Morrie understands that friendship runs deeper than mere words. As his condition deteriorates, Morrie becomes increasingly dependent on physical affection. This need is enhanced by his sudden physical reversion to infancy, and complete dependency on others for their care. Morrie's relationship with Mitch grows increasingly physical as Morrie's disease spreads; the men often hold hands as they converse, and gradually, Mitch overcomes his discomfort with displays of physical affection. His gradu al acceptance of affection is due to Morrie's teaching, and Mitch's realization that he must be open in his expression of love towards those he cares about. Morrie, however, has for a long time honored the idea of communication without words, and in a flashback described in The First Tuesday, tests this idea in a class by keeping silent for fifteen solid minutes, then breaking the silence with discussion about the affect of silence on a relationship. Morrie also uses his unabashed emotions to communicate with others, as he does during his interview with Koppel, when he sheds tears for his mother, who had died seventy years prior. Clearly, his mother's death is a tragedy that has affected Morrie's life since his eighth year, when he read the telegram announcing her death. That Morrie had to be the one to read and relay the tragic news speaks to the immense responsibility and independence he had to take on as a very young boy. This premature responsibility and independence have, undoubtedly, also affected Morrie's adult character, which makes it especially difficult for him to accept his sudden dependency on others, as he has relied only on himself since his childhood. Morrie's childhood feelings of res ponsibility go beyond what they should, not only in his responsibility for himself, but for others. Morrie blames himself for his brother's polio, and, in a sense, feels at fault for his mother's death, but is helpless to cure his brother or to bring his mother back to life. Morrie's feeling of helplessness 79

is much like Mitch's sense that he has lost control upon the death of his favorite uncle, which he describes in the beginning of the book. However, the feelings of helplessness shared by the young Mitch and the young Morrie act as the catalyst for different effects. Mitch reacts by joining the work force and striving for financial success, as where Morrie throws himself into his education, and is driven by a passion for knowledge which carries him into his adulthood, and, eventually, into the profession Mitch believes he has such a talent for. Morrie's passion for education is instilled by his stepmother, Eva, who, unlike his father, is kind and tender towards Morrie and his brother. It is implied that Morrie's great need for physical affection in his adulthood is due to the absence of it during his childhood, as, following his mother's death, he was barely acknowledged by his cold-mannered father. Eva steps in and feeds this need during the late years of Morrie's youth, but it seems his need is never fully satisfied, and this is why he looks to his friends and family for constant physical attention.

The Fourth Tuesday: We Talk about Death Morrie tells Mitch that everyone is aware that they will eventually die, though no one actually believes it. Mitch notes that Morrie is in a business-like mood on this Tuesday, as he scribbles notes in his now undecipherable handwriting. In Detroit, the newspaper strikes continue, and Mitch remains out of work. Once again, he notes the disgustingly violent news stories he has heard and read about, namely the O.J. Simpson murder trial. In Morrie's office, however, news events are inconsequential, and they focus on more meaningful subjects.

Morrie is now somewhat dependent on an oxygen machine to breathe. Mitch asks him how one can be prepared to die. Morrie responds with a Buddhist philosophy that every day, one must ask the bird on his shoulder if that day is the day he will die. Morrie adopts values and parables from many different religions; described by Mitch as a "religious mutt," Morrie had been born into Judaism, but turned agnostic during his teen years. Morrie reveals that it is only once a person knows how to die that he can then know how to live. He repeats this idea for reinforcement, and Mitch asks him if he had considered death before contracting ALS. Morrie responds that he had not thought very much about death before his illness; in fact, he had once vowed to a friend that he would be "the healthiest old man" his friend had ever met. The men talk about why facing the reality of death is so difficult for most people. Morrie says that realizing the imminence of death is realizing what is essential, thus you see your life in an entirely different light. Morrie also tells Mitch that if he accepts death, he may not be as ambitious as he is now, as he will see that he must spend time on what is meaningful to him, and not working to make money. Morrie urges Mitch to consider further "spiritual development," and concedes that he is not exactly sure what that phrase means, though he is certain that people are too involved in material goods and their own egotism. Morrie notes that he appreciates what he sees from his window, though he is unable to go outside and enjoy it. Morrie continues to receive letters from the viewers who had seen his interview with Ted Koppel on "Nightline." He dictates responses to his friends and family, and one afternoon while he is with his sons, Rob and Jon, responds to a note from a woman named Nancy who had lost her mother to ALS and says she sympathizes with Morrie for his suffering. Morrie dictates a kind reply, saying that he hopes she can find "healing power" in grieving as he has. Another woman, Jane, had written Morrie a letter in which she named him a prophet. He thanks her graciously, though he does not agree that he is of such revered status. In another letter, a man from England asks Morrie for help in contacting his dead mother. There is also a four- page letter from a former graduate student who, after graduating, experienced a murder-suicide and three still-born births. Her mother had died of ALS, and she fears that she will also develop the disease. Morrie is unsure of how to answer her. Rob suggests they simply tell her thank you for having written such a long letter. It is clear that Morrie is happy to have his sons with him.

Mitch thinks it is significant that Morrie is suffering from a disease named after an athlete, Lou Gehrig. Morrie urges Mitch to do his imitation of Gehrig giving his farewell speech in which he says that he is the "luckiest man in the world." Morrie, however doesn't feel quite the same way. Analysis The O.J. Simpson murder trial is an issue which appears repeatedly throughout the book. Mitch uses the trial as a tool to portray the popular, media-saturated culture as a source of meaninglessness, as he does when he sees the murderous potential on the faces of the people at the airport, or reads about murder and other crimes in the newspaper. These crimes that taint the popular culture are used, in large part, to contrast the good of Morrie's self-created culture against the evil of the mainstream social culture, whose values are entrenched in meaningless and wasteful endeavors, such as watching television and reading tabloid gossip. Why, then, if Morrie loathes the media and the popular culture, does he agree to do multiple interviews with Ted Koppel for "Nightline"? Because only "Nightline" can provide him with the means to reach millions of people, so that he may share his story and influence their lives with his life lessons. It seems that Morrie must use the popular culture he condemns as a vehicle to spread his philosophy of a self-created culture.

Mitch refers to Morrie as a "religious mutt" because he has created his own religion from a variety of different religious philosophies. The Buddhist philosophy Morrie shares about asking the bird on his shoulder if today is the day he will die serves as a metaphor for his awareness that he may die at any moment. The bird itself is symbolic of Morrie's consciousness that his death is fast approaching, and his readiness to accept it when it does arrive. His lesson, however, pertains more to Mitch than to himself. In telling the parable, he wants Mitch to realize that this bird is on everyone's shoulder at every moment of their lives, despite how young or old they may be. When he tells Mitch that one must know how to die before one can know how to live, he means that one must accept the possibility of one's own death before he can truly appreciate what he has on earth, as the sobering awareness that one day, it will all be out of reach, prompts the urge to appreciate and value what one can have only for a limited period of time, and to use every moment of that time doing something that one will not regret when the bird sings its last note. When Morrie tells Mitch that he may not be as professionally ambitious as he is if he were aware and accepting of his own death, he is continuing with his idea of time as a precious, irreplaceable gift. What Morrie means by this is not that Mitch should be lazy, but that he should reassess his priorities. He assumes that if Mitch were to truly and completely realize that his will someday die, he would surely rearrange his values system and realize that dedicating his time to love, family, and friends is far more important than spending his life at work, earning money that does not fulfill him. Mitch feels a void in his life which he stuffs with dollar bills, believing that material wealth his what he wants and needs. But Morrie sees through Mitch's superficial desire, and knows that the only salve for Mitch's emotional void is love and friendship. The Fifth Tuesday - The Sixth Tuesday (Family & Emotions) Summary It is September, back to school week, and for the first time in thirty-five years, Morrie is not returning to teach. Mitch notes that Morrie's clothes are progressively looser-fitting, as he is rapidly losing muscle and body mass. His shirts sag so much that Mitch must continuously adjust Morrie's microphone. Morrie enjoys this physical closeness, as he now feels a stronger need for affection than ever. He tells Mitch that one's family is one's foundation, as the love and caring that a family gives is supremely valuable. He then quotes Auden, his favorite poet, who said, "Love or perish." Mitch writes this down. Friends, Morrie urges, are not the same as having family. They can be there sometimes, but family is there constantly.

As he thinks of Morrie and his wife and children, Mitch wonders if he would feel an unbearable emptiness if he were dying and had no children of his own. Morrie tells him that he is never one to dictate whether someone should or should not have a child; all he says is that there is no experience like having children. He

says that although he is ecstatic at having raised children, he is pained by the thought of their living on without him. Morrie asks Mitch about his own family, who he had met at his college graduation. Mitch reveals that he has an older sister and a younger brother. At the thought of his older brother, Mitch is quiet. He reveals that his brother, who had moved to Europe shortly after his graduation from high school, has estranged himself from the family, as he does not want any help from them in his battle with pancreatic cancer. Growing up, Mitch had been the good boy in the family, and his brother has been bad. Despite his debauchery, his brother had remained the family favorite. Mitch often feels overly conservative in the presence of his brother, who is funny and charming. Sin ce his uncle's death, Mitch had been convinced that he would die a similarly untimely death from disease, and readied himself for cancer. However, the cancer had not struck Mitch; instead, it had struck his brother. Mitch's brother had continually refused help from the family, as he wanted to grapple with the cancer on his own. Each time Mitch had called his brother's home in Spain and had heard the message on his answering machine, spoken in Spanish, it had served as a disheartening reminder of the great distance between them. In a flashback to his childhood, Mitch recalls going sledding with his brother. They had narrowly escaped being run over by a car, and after their initial fear and shock has subsided, and they are safe, they swell with pride and feel ready to risk their l ives once more. The Sixth Tuesday: We Talk about Emotions Upon his arrival at Morrie's house, Mitch is greeted not by Connie as he usually is, but by Charlotte, Morrie's wife. In keeping with Morrie's wishes, Charlotte has kept her job as a professor at M.I.T., and Mitch is surprised to find her at home. She tells Mitch that Morrie isn't having a good day, and also admits that he can no longer eat the food that Mitch brings him each week, as he can only ingest soft food and liquids. Morrie hadn't told him, as he hadn't wanted to hurt Mitch's feelings. Charlotte seems despondent, and Mitch attributes her distant look to her exhaustion, as she often is up throughout the night with Morrie when he cannot sleep. Morrie's condition had been decreasing rapidly, and now there are home health care workers working 24-hour shifts to care for him. Mitch notices the many pill bottles that line the kitchen table.

Morrie is now coughing more violently than ever and struggles for breath as he talks with Mitch. He explains to Mitch that he is consciously "detaching himself from the experience," and explains the Buddhist philosophy that one should not cling to things because everything that exists is impermanent. Mitch questions emotional detachment, and Morrie reveals that detachment does not mean ignoring an experience, but immersing yourself in it. By experiencing wholly, one is able to let go, to detach. Morrie tells Mitch that he must detach during his most frightening moments, like when his chest seizes up and he is unable to breathe. It is then that he must step outside of himself and accept that he could die at any moment. After his explanation of detachment, Morrie suffers a violent coughing fit. Mitch slaps him on the back until he recuperates. Morrie reveals that he wants to die in peace and serenity, unlike the fit he had just suffered. Detachment, he says, brings him s erenity during such a frightening episode. Mitch asks Morrie not to go just yet, and Morrie concedes, saying that they still have much work to do. Morrie tells Mitch that if he could be reincarnated, he would come back to earth as a gazelle, because they are "graceful and fast." Initially, Mitch thinks this is a strange choice, but understands when he studies Morrie's withering frame. Analysis In addition to his teachings on cultural rejection and development, Morrie's most important lesson is that love is essential for fulfillment and happiness. He summarizes this lesson when he recites the Auden quote, "Love or perish." Morrie, who is known for his belief aphorisms such as this, means to say that to survive, people need other people who they can give love to, and who will love them back. Morrie is considers himself fortunate because he has loved ones, including Mitch, who care for them with as much love as he would show them, were they ill. The distinction that Morrie makes between friends and family is understandable. Flesh and blood, he says, are there for you always, as you are intrinsically tied to them. 82

Friends, he claims, are not as st able, not as secure in their love. Morrie also believes that only family can provide a solid foundation for an individual to grow from, and implies that without this solid basis, one can never know love. However, Morrie's lessons are volatile with claims that could easily be argued against, such as this one in particular. Can friends not create a family? And can children who are raised in abusive situations not know love in healthy adult relationships? Morrie's laws of love and life may apply to him personally, though not necessarily to all of his readers. Yet another arguable issue that arises in Tuesdays With Morrie is the contradictory presentation of creating one's own culture. If Morrie is e ncouraging Mitch to create a culture all his own, why is it that he tries to influence it with his own values? Also contradictory is Morrie's statement regarding parenting children. He mentions that he is never one to preach that a person should or should not have a child, then insinuates that to forfeit parenting is to forfeit some essential aspect of life. In advising Mitch that he should begin "detaching" himself from his experiences, Morrie does not intend for him to stop feeling or experiencing. Instead, he wants for Mitch to realize that time is fleeting, as is life itself, a general message Morrie send s throughout the entirety of the book. Morrie detaches during his frightening coughing episodes so that he may accept the impermanence of his life, and embrace his death, which he knows may come at any moment. In detaching from oneself, Morrie means that one can step out of tangible surroundings and into one's own state of consciousness, namely for the sake of gaining perspective and composure in a stressful situation. Morrie's openness to reincarnation is revealing also of his attitude towards the afterlife; he does not know what it holds for him, but is willing to accept his fate, whatever it may hold. The bottles of medication that line the kitchen table serve as foreboding symbols of Morrie's rapid deterioration, and of his fast-approaching death.

The Seventh Tuesday: We Talk about the Fear of Aging Summary The Professor, Part Two One of Morrie's first jobs after earning his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago had been as a researcher in a private mental hospital outside of Washington, D.C. He had been given a grant to research the patients and their treatments, which was a gr ound breaking concept then, in the early 1950's. Every day, one female patient would lie face-down on the floor in the hallway and remain there for hours at a time. Morrie had been saddened by the sight of her, and began sitting on the floor beside her, although he was not supposed to interact on such an intimate level with the patients. Morrie eventually coaxed the woman to sit up and return to her room, as all she truly wanted was a bit of attention, which he gave to her.

Morrie came to befriend many of the patients. One woman was notorious for her nasty behavior. She spit at everyone but Morrie, who she called her friend. When she had run away, Morrie had been asked to help lead her back to the hospital. When he and the o ther staff members had found her hiding in a nearby store, she had accused Morrie of betraying her, as he has taken the side of her "jailers." While he had been employed at the hospital, Morrie had noticed that many of the patients had come from very wealthy families, though their wealth had not contributed whatsoever to their happiness. At Brandeis University, Morrie had taught many student radicals, advocates of the 1960's cultural revolution. The sociology faculty, including Morrie, had sympathized with these students, and took a very liberal stance. When they had learned that male stu dents who did not maintain a certain grade point average would be drafted, they had bravely decided to give them all A's. Morrie had also gotten personally involved in the revolution. He had traveled to Washington D.C. to protest with students. At one point, a group of black Brandeis students had claimed one of the campus halls as their own by draping a banner over it that read: "Malcolm X University." This particular hall, Ford Hall, held the university chemistry labs, and much of the administration had feared that the students were concocting bombs. The battle between the students and the university lasted for weeks, and only ended when, one day,

Morrie was walking past Ford Hall and a former student of his called to him from the building. M orrie climbed inside through the window, and emerged an hour later with a list of the protester's demands, which he took to the university president. Shortly afterwards, the situation was resolved. Mitch researches how different cultures view death. He admires the theory of a tribe in the North American Arctic who believe that there is a miniature self within every creature, so that when the larger creature dies, the miniature lives on, whether it immediately takes the form of an infant or takes temporary refuge in the sky and waits for the moon to return it to earth. The Seventh Tuesday We Talk about the Fear of Aging Morrie had told Ted Koppel in his first interview that the thing he feared most about his disease was the probability that one day, someone else would have to wipe him after going to the bathroom. Now, his worst fear has come true. Morrie's aide, Co nnie, must now do it for him, and he sees this as a complete surrender to the disease. He is now dependent on others for nearly all of his needs. Once again, Morrie tells Mitch that despite the difficulties of dependency, he is trying to enjoy being a c hild for a second time. He repeats that we should reject culture if we don't find it conducive to our needs, and again tells Mitch that we need to be loved as we are when we are babies, constantly being held and rocked by our mothers. Mitch notes that at 78 years old, Morrie is "giving as an adult and taking as a child."

On his ride to Morrie's house in West Newton from Boston's Logan airport, Mitch notices the beautiful, young people on every billboard he passes. As he nears forty, Mitch is already feeling "over the hill," and tries frantically to stay youthful, working out obsessively, eating healthy foods, and checking his hairline daily. Morrie tells him that the happiness of youth is a farce, as not only do young people suffer very real miseries, but they do not have the wisdom of age to deal with them. He says that he has never feared aging; he embraces it. He also tells Mitch that, in old age, to wish for youth indicates an unfulfilled life, and that to fight age is fight a hopeless battle, because aging and death are inevitable, and part of life. Mitch asks Morrie how he keeps from envying him and his youth. Morrie replies that it is "impossible" for him not to envy young people, but the point of aging is to accept your age at that moment; Morrie has already lived through his thirties, now it is M itch's turn. Morrie has lived through every age up to his own, and he is therefore a part of each of them. How, he asks Mitch, can he be envious of his age when he has already lived through it? Analysis In the second installment of The Professor, Morrie is portrayed as a having been exceptionally liberal for his time and for his age. The first indication that Morrie is ahead of the popular culture is his acceptance of the researching position at the ment al institution, where, as a further showing of his liberal qualities, breaks the rules and befriends the most difficult patients, each of whom respond to Morrie more than they do their doctors and psychiatrists. Morrie's so-called radical values are also exemplified by his unusually intimate relationship with his students, Mitch included. Like the students who protest on Washington D.C., and those who took over Ford Hall to fight racism at the university, Morrie believes in the progression of culture. The culture he has created for himself does not adhere to the popular rules he protests against, and he fights to change popular social values when the do not agree with his own. Morrie continues to be very progressively- minded even in his old age, and often reminds Mitch that he and everyone else is constantly changing form; his self is in continuous transition, despite his age. It is never too late, he says, to change. Morrie applies this belief to the culture that surrounds him, and fights to alter it if the cause is one worth his dedication. Morrie does not harbor jealousy for Mitch and his youth because he has already been a young man. He is curious about the new frontiers he must face in his old age, and does not wish to return to youth. He does not want to relive the past, but instead want s to experience the future, even if that future is very short. Morrie mentions that to wish for youth is to admit to an unfulfilled life. This statement implies that Morrie has lived a full life, and feels satisfied with the experiences he has had through out his lifetime. At the close of nearly every chapter, Mitch reflects on an experience of his that somehow relates back to his friendship with Morrie. He often flashes back to his days at Brandeis, a conversation he has shared with 84

Morrie, or, as in this Seventh Tuesday, describes the values and practices of a culture he has researched. Mitch has taken to researching various cultures since his reunion with Morrie, as his professor has stressed that he create a culture all his own, and to reject any part of the popular culture that does not cooperate with his own values. At the end of this particular chapter, Mitch describes a tribe in the Arctic who see birth and death as being interconnected and cyclic, almost as a form of alternative reincarnation. The smaller creature with in the large is what popular culture views as the soul within the body. Like the tribe in the Arctic, popular culture also believes that the soul lives on after death. This idea of living on after death is present throughout much of Tuesdays With Morrie, especially as Morrie's dying day grows nearer. Also prevalent is the idea of life and death as part of a larger cycle, as alluded to in the repeated indirect comparison of Morrie to the pink hibiscus plant, and in the parable he tells on the thirteenth Tuesday, about the waves in the ocean crashing, dying, then returning to their place as a small part of a larger body.

The Eight Tuesday: We Talk about Money Mitch shows Morrie a quote by billionaire Ted Turner that he has found in the newspaper which reads, "I don't want my tombstone to read, 'I never owned a network.'" The men laugh, and Mitch notices the pink hibiscus plant on Morrie's window sill. Morrie repeats his lesson that we should not put value on material things, as it will lead to disillusionment and unfulfillment. Today is a good day for Morrie, as a local a capella group has come by the night before to give a private performance for him. Morrie had always loved music, but since his illness, it has had an even more profound effect on him. He is usually moved to tears when listening to music he finds especially beautiful. It is simple pleasures such as the acapella group's visit that Morrie revels in, not money and material wealth as is the accepted cultural norm. In a sense, he says, the culture has brainwashed us into believing that we can replace love with money, and we try, only to be left unsatisfied and hungry. Mitch notes that after Morrie had learned of his illness, he had lost all interest in material goods, and had bought nothing new since. Despite his dwindling funds, Mitch thinks that Morrie's house is filled with enormous wealth, as it is beautified by objects, but by love. Morrie urges Mitch to give of himself, which is more meaningful than giving money. He advises him to devote himself to loving and giving generously to his community, possibly by volunteering at a local senior center. Mitch is now realizing that, after all of his years spent driven by financial success, he cannot find happiness in money and professional power.

The Ninth Tuesday: We Talk about How Love Goes On The newspaper strikes at Mitch's former workplace continue. The O.J. Simpson murder trial is winding to a close and has created a frenzied media circus. Mitch reveals that he has been thinking of his younger brother often, and has tried to call him at home in Spain. He had left messages letting him know that he wanted to talk to him, and had received a brief message in reply a few weeks later in which his brother assured him that everything was okay, but that he did not want to talk about his cancer. Morrie's condition has deteriorated considerably. He now must urinate through a catheter, and can barely move his own head. He has the ability to feel pain in his limbs, but cannot move them. Morrie spends his days resting on the chair in his study, and relays his latest aphorism, "When you're in bed, you're dead." "Nightline" has called to schedule a third follow-up interview with Morrie, though they would like to wait until Morrie's condition has worsened a bit more, which bothers Mitch. Analysis With the onset of his eighth Tuesday with Morrie, Mitch is beginning to truly understand that love is of greater value than material goods. Morrie has continually told Mitch that love for family and friends is more important than career and money, and that greed for material wealth will exacerbate a void that only love and relationships can fill. Mitch has listened intently to Morrie's lessons on love versus money, but it is not until this particular conversation that Mitch sees the wealth that surrounds Morrie. Despite his modest home, 85

Mitch suddenly realizes Morrie's immense wealth, as he is surrounded by those who love and care for him during his most desperate time of need.

When Mitch reads the quote by billionaire media mogul Ted Turner, he sees a bit of Turner's greediness in himself, and is frightened by it. When Turner says that he does not want his "tombstone to read, 'I never owned a network," he gives the dual impression that he does not want to be remembered purely for his professional shortcomings. This idea of how one is remembered after death one of the books main concerns. Morrie gives less thought to his professional career than Turner, of course, and focuses on how he has touched people personally, including his students. In a later chapter, Mitch asks Morrie if he fears being forgotten after he dies. Morrie replies that he has no fear of being forgotten, as he is alive in the memory of those who love him. The Turner quote is used to reveal Morrie's connection between love and staying alive in the memory of others. Turner's appearance in the book also contributes to the array of media-related images that appear throughout Tuesdays With Morrie. The media is unmistakably portrayed as a dual purveyor of evil and meaninglessness, exemplified by the many newspaper articles Mitch reads about recent murders and hatred crimes, and by the O.J. Simpson murder trial, which has created a frenzied circus media and public debate, with journalists feeding on it like vultures would a meaty carcass. Also vital to the portrayal of the media in the book is Mitch's occupation as a long-time journalist. Throughout his time with Morrie, his employer continues to strike, and he remains out of a job. While he had been working, Mitch had been miserable, and had dedicated his life to his "meaningless" work, reporting on sporting events and chasing down celebrities. Now, however, Mitch has had the time to restore meaning to his life, rekindling loving relationships and create his own culture, as Morrie has instructed him to do. The media is also a major influence on the values system dictated by popular culture, which Morrie rejects. Even the famous interviewer Ted Koppel, who Morrie befriends, is portrayed as somewhat heartless in The Ninth Tuesday, when his corporation calls Morrie to ask him for another interview to be scheduled only when Morrie's health is noticeably deteriorated. The Tenth Tuesday: We Talk about Marriage Morrie can no longer eat any of the food Mitch brings him, as he is restricted to a diet of liquids. His condition is drastically worse, as the disease has reached his lungs, which he had always said would mark his death. He is now reliant on an oxygen tank, and suffers violent, hour-long coughing spells, each a serious threat to his life.

Mitch brings his wife, Janine, with him to meet Morrie. Morrie had been asking to meet Janine since his first meetings with Mitch. One night, Morrie had been on the phone with Mitch, and he had asked to speak to Janine. Janine had taken the phone and conversed with Morrie as if they had been friends for many years, though they had never spoken before. Mitch thought that had he been put in her position, forced to speak on the phone with a complete stranger, he would have refused to take the call. When Janine had finished her conversation with Morrie, she announced that she would be joining Mitch on his next trip to Boston to meet his professor. Morrie, Mitch reports, is a harmless flirt, and seems to have tapped new energy with Janine by his side. Janine is originally from Detroit, and Morrie tells a "funny story" about his time teaching at a university there. On occasion, he and the other sociology professors would congregate to play a game of poker. One of the other professors was a surgeon, and he had invited Morrie to join him at work to watch him perform a surgery. Morrie had gone to see the surgery, but was nauseated by the sight of blood. Just as he had felt ready to faint, one of the nurses mistook him for a doctor, and had asked if he was feeling well. Morrie had yelled at the nurse that he was not a doctor, and had stormed out of the room feeling sick. Janine is a professional singer, and performs a song form Morrie when he asks her to, though she does not normally sing upon request. When she has finished singing, Morrie is so moved, he is crying. Afterwards, Morrie lectures Mitch and Janine on the how the culture of "kids today" makes "their generation" too selfish 86

to commit to a loving relationship. Morrie and his wife, Charlotte, have been married for forty-four years. The only time Morrie will not reveal a personal anecdote is when he fears he may violate Charlotte's privacy. He says that marriage is a test; in it, you learn who you are, who the other person is, and how you can or cannot make the relationship work. Similar values, he says, are essential for partners to share, the greatest of which is the importance of the marriage itself. He advocates marriage as "a very important thing to do," and preaches that those who do not try it will miss out on a major life experience. Later, Mitch asks Morrie if he recalls the Book of Job from the Bible, the parable about a good man who God makes suffer only to test his religious faith. Morrie tells Mitch that in his opinion, God "overdid it." The Eleventh Tuesday: We Talk about Our Culture Morrie's disease is spreading to his lungs, and soon he will die of suffocation. His physical therapist instructs Mitch on how to free the poison in Morrie's lungs through pounding and massage. Mitch jokes that the blows are revenge for the B grade Morrie had given him in college. Mitch is now less self-conscious and less embarrassed about helping Morrie. Now, he wants to observe and learn how to help him. Even Morrie is less embarrassed by his own physical handicaps, such as not being able to go to the bathroom without assistance. He reports that he and Morrie now hold hands regularly. Morrie complains that the culture deems that natural physical need is socially embarrassing, and thus we must reject it. Mitch asks him why he had not moved to a place with a less selfish culture. Morrie tells him that every culture has its own problems, thus he has created his own. The biggest problem with most cultures, he says, is its inability to visualize and utilize its potential. Morrie advises that we must "invest in people," as we need others not only at the very beginning and very end of our lives, but during our middle years, as well.

Later that day, Connie and Mitch watch the O.J. Simpson murder trial verdict on television. Simpson is found not guilty, and Connie is appalled. Mitch notes the racial division in the response to the verdict: blacks celebrate, whites mourn. Mitch flashes back to a basketball game held in the Brandeis University gymnasium in 1979. The team is doing well and chants, "We're number one!" Morrie stands and shouts, "What's wrong with being number two?" The students fall silent. Analysis Since his second visit, Mitch has brought Morrie delicious food to eat each time he arrives, as he remember's his professor's passion for food. Mitch had brought the food because he believed it was the only thing he could give to Morrie that would ameliorate his pain. Now that Morrie can no longer eat solid food, Mitch again feels helpless as he did when his favorite uncle died, as he is powerless against Morrie's disease and powerless to stop him from dying. Now, he feels he cannot even bring him happiness by buying him food each week. However, on his eleventh Tuesday with Morrie, Mitch begins to understand how he can provide for Morrie, even without the gift of good food. It is on this Tuesday that Mitch sheds his embarrassment at Morrie's physical shortcomings, and instead of simply watching Morrie's aides help him with his routine, as he usually does, Mitch offers to involve himself, and does, taking lessons from Morrie's physical therapist on how to free the deadly poison from his professor's lungs. But the gift that Mitch gives to Morrie is intangible. The gift Mitch gives to Morrie is his friendship and his time. Morrie appreciates Mitch not because he brings him good food to eat each week, but because he sits with him, listening for hours to his life stories and soaking up the lessons he teaches to him. The greatest gift Mitch gives to Morrie is the book itself, what they refer to as their 'last thesis' together. Morrie wants Mitch to relay his story and his lessons to the largest audience possible, and Mitch concedes, tape recording every meeting and listening intently to all Morrie has to teach him. Mitch also provides Morrie with the gift of physical comfort, which Morrie now needs as much as a small baby would from its mother. Morrie thrives on physical affection in part because he was so deprived of it as a boy, but namely because in losing his independence, he has gradually metamorphosed into a child. He is saddened by popular culture's dismissal of physical affection as a form of nurturing that is necessary only 87

during childhood because he knows from experience that it is necessary throughout all stages of life, for children, for adults, and for the elderly. This idea that Morrie is growing younger as his condition worsens supports his belief in an ever-changing self. Morrie believes that every individual, regardless of age, undergoes infinite transformation, and is aware of the mental, spiritual, and physical changes he has experienced since learning of his illness. Mitch, too, is gradually becoming more aware of the changes he is making in his own life. When Janine agrees to speak with Morrie, who she has never spoken with before, Mitch realizes that, unlike his wife, he would have refused such a call from a stranger, and seems to reassess his behavior, given the easy conversation between Janine and Morrie. Mitch is indeed in a heightened state of self-reassessment and transition, instilled and encouraged by Morrie.

The Twelfth Tuesday: We Talk about Forgiveness The Audiovisual, Part Three The "Nightline" television crew, including Ted Koppel, arrives at Morrie's house in West Newton, MA for their third and final interview, which Mitch notes is more like a solemn farewell. Morrie isn't confident that he will be able to give the interview, as he now has trouble breathing and speaking. When Morrie tells Koppel about his reservations, Koppel is understanding, as he now calls Morrie a "friend." When Koppel had first been reunited with Morrie, he had kissed him. Ultimately, Morrie does do the interview, during which he wears the same shirt he had worn the day before. He now changes his clothes only every other day. This third interview, unlike the previous two, is conducted in Morrie's study, as he is now confined to his chair.

In the interview, Morrie explains that he is gradually letting go of the outside world. He tells Koppel that he admires the courage and perseverance of ALS victims such as the famous physicist and author Stephen Hawking, who has a breathing hole in his throat and speaks through a computer synthesizer. Morrie, however, does not want to live this way. He would instead like to die in serenity, and relays his newest aphorism, "Don't let go too soon, but don't hang on too long." Afterwards, he reiterates that love and compassion are life's most essential lessons, and tells Koppel that his disease may be attacking his body, but he will not allow it to attack his spirit. At this, Koppel is near tears. In the last segment of the interview, Morrie divulges that he has been "bargaining with Him up there," the first time Mitch has heard him admit that he talks to God. The Twelfth Tuesday: We Talk about Forgiveness As Mitch massages Morrie's aching feet, they discuss the pointlessness of vengeance and the importance of forgiveness. Morrie admits his regret for past bouts of pride and vanity, and Mitch wonders if he feels the need to apologize before he dies. With that, Morrie points to a bronze sculpture in the corner of his study. It is a bust replica of Morrie that had been sculpted by his former friend Norman thirty years before. He and Norman had been close friends until Norman had moved to Chicago. Shortly after he had moved, Charlotte was due to undergo a serious surgery, and Morrie was offended that his old friend, who knew of the upcoming surgery, never called to wish her well or show his support. Years later, Norman made repeated attempts at reconciliation, but Morrie had refused. Norman had died of cancer only a short time ago, and now Morrie regrets never accepting his apology and reconciling. He begins to cry as he talks about his old friend. Morrie stresses that is vital to forgive oneself, just as it is vital to forgive others. Once again, he calls himself "lucky" for having the time to forgive himself and others while he is dying. Mitch notices that the hibiscus plant by the window is "still holding on, small but firm." Morrie confides that if he could have had another son, he would have wanted it to be Mitch. Upon hearing this, Mitch fears that accepting Morrie's statement will betray his own father. Though, when he sees Morrie crying, he knows that there is no betrayal in such a loving moment, and that his fear lies in saying good-bye.

Morrie has chosen to be buried on a hill, beneath a tree, by a pond. He tells Mitch that it is a very serene location, and asks him if he will come and talk to him, tell him his problems, there on Tuesdays, because they are "Tuesday people." Mitch tells him that it will not be the same, as he will not be able to answer back. Morrie assures him that even after he is dead, he will continue to listen to Mitch. Analysis Morrie's talent for overcoming communication barriers is shown by his relationship with Ted Koppel. Morrie, a man of modest means, is able not only to befriend Koppel, one of the nation's most famous newsmen, but to move him almost to tears. Koppel has transitioned from a man who, in Morrie's view, was merely a narcissistic television personality, to a caring friend who kisses Morrie upon their reunion. In this way, Morrie has an uncanny ability to communicate and share his love with everyone around him, regardless of the drastic difference in their social social stature.

The progression of the friendship between Koppel and Morrie is steady from their first meeting until their last, as is evident in Koppel's affection towards him and expression emotion at his story. Morrie's friendship with Koppel can be attributed to Morrie's sheer honesty; from their very first meeting, Morrie refuses to put on airs, or even dress differently for Koppel's visit, although his friends and family are bent on impressing him. Immediately, upon their first meeting, Morrie breaks Koppel down to find the essence of his humanness, as Morrie has no use for the distinction popular culture makes between the famous man and the man who works ten hour days to earn his bread. It is this humanness that Morrie uses to communicate with Mitch, as he had his other students, as well. On the twelfth Tuesday, Morrie drops recognizable hints that his dying day is approaching. When Morrie explains that he is gradually letting go of the outside world, he is admitting that he has come to grips with his so-called 'death sentence.' He would like to die in peace and serenity, not in struggle or fear, and can only do this in his gradual release of life, as each small piece he frees himself from brings him closer to acceptance of death, both his own and the idea of it, which will ultimately allow him to die the peaceful death he so desires. Morrie's idea of slowly 'letting go' of the outside world correlates with the idea he spoke of earlier with Mitch about the Buddhist belief in detachment. Gradually, as he grows closer to death by the day, Morrie is detaching himself from his life, and immersing himself in acceptance and faith that death will only bring new life. This theory of detachment also applies to Morrie's latest aphorism, "Don't let go too soon, but don't hang on too long." If Morrie is to cling to his last moments of life, desperately craving more, he will die having felt in his last minutes only frustration and dissatisfaction. This belief is much like Morrie's understanding of age. As he has explained to Mitch, he believes that a specific age, whether old or young, should be enjoyed during the year that it is being lived. Just as older people who have enriched their lives with meaningful and satisfying endeavors do not feel the need to return to or relive their youth, the dying should not feel the need for a longer life, given they have lived their life to its fullest extent. The Thirteenth Tuesday: We Talk about the Perfect Day Morrie decides that he wants to be cremated and discusses his funeral plans with Charlotte and Al Axelrad, a rabbi from Brandeis and a long-time friend of Morrie's. Now, Morrie must breathe through an oxygen tube which has been inserted up his nose. Mitch hates the sight of the oxygen tube, as he views it as a symbol of complete helplessness and even has the urge to yank it from his nose. Morrie describes to him a violent coughing spell he had suffered the night before, and explains that he found serenity in those frightening moments when he was able to accept his own death. It was only then that he truly felt ready to die and transcend. He stresses that while we are alive, we must "make peace" with the reality of dying.

Morrie asks to see the hibiscus plant on the window ledge of his study. Mitch cups it in his hands and brings it close to his professor's face, which makes Morrie smile. Death, Morrie says after seeing the plant, is only natural. Morrie again mentions that a person can die without ever completely going away, as they are

recalled by the living who lovingly remember them. The love one creates while alive, he says, remains long after death. Brutally realistic, Morrie has never hoped that his illness could be cured. He tells Mitch that there is no possible way he could ever return to being the man he had been before contracting the disease, as he is now a completely different self. Mitch then asks what Morrie would do if he could have twenty-four hours of full health. Morrie replies, very simply, that he would do what he would have done on any average day, such as eat lunch with friends and go for an evening walk. Mitch is surprised at first, and then realizes that Morrie is trying to exemplify that there is perfection in the average day. Later, Morrie broaches the sensitive topic of Mitch's younger brother, Peter. Mitch remembers him as a carefree child, and thinks how different he is now as an adult, frail from the chemotherapy treatments. Mitch has called his brother, though he has not been able to speak to him. Peter continually refuses Mitch's support, and reiterates that he does not want to talk about his cancer. Morrie assures Mitch that his loving relationship with his brother will be restored in time. Morrie tells a story he had heard about a wave on the ocean. The wave had felt good until it had realized that, like all the other waves, it would soon crash to shore and be destroyed. Another wave tells him not to be afraid, for all of the small waves are a part of the larger ocean. The Fourteenth Tuesday: We Say Good-bye Charlotte had called the day prior to Mitch's visit to let him know that Morrie had not been doing well, a sign that he had reached his final days. Morrie is asleep when he arrives on this last and fourteenth Tuesday, and he must wait to see him. For a moment, Mitch worries that he has forgotten to bring tapes for his tape recorder. He has brought food for him, as usual, though Morrie has not been able to eat such food for quite a while. He apologizes to Charlotte for bringing the food, and explains that it has become a tradition. Mitch reads the newspaper while he waits for Morrie to wake, and again reads of murder and hatred. As he enters Morrie's bedroom, he notices a 24-hour hospice nurse sitting in the hall and recalls Morrie's aphorism, "When you're in bed, you're dead."

Morrie is barely able to speak, though he manages to tell Mitch that he is his friend, a good soul, and that he loves him. Throughout their last conversation, Mitch holds Morrie's hand. Morrie cries, and Mitch comforts him by stroking his head. He tells Morrie that he will return next Tuesday, as he knows that Morrie is tired, and leaves without ever having turned on the tape recorder. He gives Morrie one last farewell kiss, and finally, he cries. Graduation Morrie had died on Saturday morning, the fourth of November. In the two days prior to his death, he had slipped into a coma. Each of his family members had worked various time shifts to watch over him, though Morrie had waited until they had all gone to the kitchen for coffee to finally pass away. Mitch believes Morrie had died this way purposely, as not to scar any of his family members in the way that he had been scarred by each of his parents' tragic deaths. The funeral gathering is small, though many had wanted to attend. Mitch recalls Morrie's suggestion that he talk to him at his gravesite, which Mitch does during the funeral. To his surprise, it feels almost natural. Conclusion Mitch reflects on how he has changed since his final lessons with Morrie. He wishes he could reach back and shake sense into the jaded man he had been before his reunion with his old professor, but finds comfort in Morrie's lesson that he is ever-changing. Shortly after Morrie's death, Mitch is able to contact his brother, Peter, in Europe. The brothers have a long talk in which Mitch explains that he respects Peter's distance, but wants to maintain a relationship with him. He tells Peter that he does not want to lose him, and that he loves him. Only days later, he receives a good-humored fax message from Peter, an indication that their relationship will soon be rekindled. Mitch reveals that the book itself was largely Morrie's idea, and that he had even invented the title himself. He and Mitch had referred to the book as their "final thesis." Mitch looks through boxes of Morrie's old 90

college material and finds a final paper he had written. Mitch then speaks directly to his readers, probing them to consider the importance of teachers they have had in the past and the long-term influence they have had on the readers' lives. Analysis Throughout Tuesdays With Morrie, Morrie's growing dependency on oxygen has served as an indicator for Mitch to understand how close his professor is to his dying day. Morrie's dependency on the oxygen tank has increased steadily since the nights when he needed it only to regain his normal breathing pattern. Now that Morrie relies on the oxygen tubes in his nose to breathe at all, he knows that Morrie's day to leave him is frighteningly close, and cannot accept that soon, his dear friend will not be there, waiting in his study on Tuesday with a smile and a lesson on life. Mitch's newfound friendship with Morrie has served as the catalyst for many a revelation. He has reassessed his life and his priorities that drive it. Now, it is time fro Mitch to accept that Morrie is dying, and will not be with him on earth for much longer. Mitch's urge to yank the oxygen tube from Morrie's nose is a manifestation of his fear; he is afraid of what he will become without Morrie to guide him, and essentially wants to revert time to a day when Morrie was strong, cogent, and in good health. But in time, Mitch realizes that to do this is impossible, and that he must accept death as Morrie has, with patience and courage. His realization comes when he hears Morrie speak about the pink hibiscus plant. Since the start of the book, the pink hibiscus plant has served as a symbol of life's fragility. The plant represents both life and death. As Morrie's condition deteriorates, the plant begins to wither and shed its leaves. The health of the hibiscus plant, in essence, keeps the pace with Morrie's physical deterioration, serving as an example of nature's intended life cycle for every life, be it man or hibiscus. Although Morrie's belief in the afterlife is not absolutely defined, it is strongly implied that he holds some belief in the possibility of reincarnation. Throughout the book, he and Mitch have discussed the beliefs of other cultures in the afterlife, such as the tribe that believe in miniature creatures (the soul) within each larger animal (the body). Morrie has also said that if he could be reincarnated, he would return as a gazelle, as he yearns to once again be limber and fast. The story Morrie tells Mitch on their fourteenth Tuesday together is also indicative of his belief in reincarnation after death. In the allegory, each wave on the ocean does not die, but becomes a small constituent of the larger body of water. Morrie's appreciation of the story can be interpreted to reveal his belief that after his death, he, the one small wave, will somehow return to the human race, the vast ocean, and again contribute to a cycle he has unknowingly repeated many a time, just as the waves on the ocean continuously break on the shore and dissipate, only to return with the white- capped crest that follows.

Important Quotations Explained Take my condition. The things I am supposed to be embarrassed about now — not being able to walk, not being able to wipe my ass, waking up some mornings wanting to cry — there is nothing innately embarrassing about them. It's the same for women not being thin enough, or men not being rich enough. It's just what our culture would have you believe. Don't believe it. Explanation for Quotation 1 >> Morrie speaks these words of advice to Mitch during their eleventh Tuesday together, when they talk specifically about culture. Gradually, Morrie has come to accept his physical handicaps, just as he has come to accept his impending death. He complains that the culture is wrong to deem natural physical need as socially embarrassing, and thus he refuses to believe that his handicaps are shameful. In rejecting the values of the popular culture, Morrie creates his own set of mores, which accommodate the physical shortcomings popular culture finds pitiable and embarrassing. As Morrie sees it, popular culture is a dictator under which the human community must suffer. He has already suffered enough from his disease, and does not see why he should seek social acceptance if it is not conducive to his personal happiness. Throughout the book, popular culture is portrayed as a vast brainwashing machine, wiping clean the minds of the public, and replacing the inherent kindness theyposses at birth with a ruthless greed and selfish focus. 91

You see, . . . you closed your eyes. That was the difference. Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them, too — even when you're in the dark. Even when you're falling. Explanation for Quotation 2 >> Morrie says this to his class in a flash back during the second Tuesday. He has asked his class to perform a trust fall exercise, in which the students test one another's trust and reliability by doing trust falls; one student will fall straight backwards and must rely on another student to catch them. Not one student can trust another until one girl falls without flinching. Morrie notes that the girl had closed her eyes, and says that this exercise serves as a metaphor for the secret to trust in relationships; one must sometimes trust blindly, relying only on what they feel to guide them in their decision-making. He uses the exercise to teach his students that trustworthiness is a quality shared by two people in a partnership, and that each person takes a risk in trusting the other. This risk, however, is a risk that people must take. Morrie teaches his students that trust is blind; one can only judge whether or not to trust another based on an instinctive feeling, not because of any rational judgment or method of thinking. To trust someone is to close your eyes and fall back, hoping that the person your instincts have told you is trustworthy will catch you and keep you from harm.

As you grow, you learn more. If you stayed as ignorant as you were at twenty- two, you'd always be twenty-two. Aging is not just decay, you know. It's growth. It's more than the negative that you're going to die, it's the positive that you understand you're going to die, and that you live a better life because of it. Explanation for Quotation 3 >> Morrie speaks these words of advice to Mitch on their seventh Tuesday together, when they discuss the common fear of aging. Morrie tells Mitch that the happiness of youth is a farce, as not only do young people suffer very real miseries, but they do not have the wisdom of age to deal with them. Morrie has never feared aging; he embraces it. He believes that if he were to wish for youth, that would indicate his dissatisfaction with the life he has lived. He explains to Mitch that to fight age is fight a hopeless battle, because aging and death are inevitable, and a natural part of the life cycle. Morrie has lived through every age up to his own, and he is therefore a part of each of them. He does not wish to return to these particular ages, as each of them are constituents of the man he is now. He is more eager to explore new frontiers he must face in the future, even if that future is very limited. In accepting his own death, Morrie is able to savor the little time he has left to live, instead of wasting away, frustrated and angry that his time on earth is soon to end.

The truth is . . . once you learn how to die, you learn how to live. Morrie says this on the fourth Tuesday in response to Mitch's question about how one can prepare for death. He responds with a Buddhist philosophy that every day, one must ask the bird on his shoulder if that day is the day he will die. The philosophy serves as a metaphor for his awareness that his death may come at any moment. The bird itself is symbolic of Morrie's consciousness that his death is fast-approaching, and his readiness to accept it when it does arrive. He hopes that Mitch will realize that this bird is on everyone's shoulder at every moment of their lives, despite how young or old they may be. When he tells Mitch that one must know how to die before one can know how to live, he means that one must accept the possibility of one's own death before he can truly appreciate what he has on earth, as the sobering awareness that one day, it will all be out of reach, prompts the urge to appreciate and value what one can have only for a limited period of time, and to use every moment of that time doing something that one will not regret when the bird sings its last note(SeeThis too will Pass Away: Kuruvilla).

After the funeral, my life changed. I felt as if time were suddenly precious, water going down an open drain, and I could not move quickly enough. No more playing music at half-empty night clubs. No more writing songs in my apartment, songs that no one would hear. 92

Mitch reveals this resolution in the third chapter of the book, The Student, in which he describes the passionate, earnest, innocent young man he had been before entrenching himself in greed and material wealth. Upon the untimely death of his favorite uncle, Mitch's outlook on life is forever changed. He suddenly feels that the time is precious, and is compelled to live his life to its fullest potential, which, at the time, he believes is the attainment of financial success. The quote serves as Mitch's explanation of how he has transformed from an honest, hopeful young man into a money-grubbing professional who has abandoned his long-harbored dreams in exchange for financial security. It is clear that Mitch feels disconnected with the young man he once was at Brandeis, but desperately wants to reestablish a connection with his former ambitions and ethical values. Mitch had abandoned his dreams for musical success at a very vulnerable period in his life, as he had grown increasingly discouraged by his failure in playing the nightclub circuit. The death of his favorite uncle only served to compound his disillusionment, and, more than any other factor, influenced Mitch to envision life as a race to beat the clock, sucking dry every moment to attain wealth and power as a business professional.

Key Facts Full title · Tuesdays With Morrie: An Old Man, A young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson Author · MitchAlbom Type of work · non-fiction Genre · Autobiographical documentary Language · English Time and place written · Detroit, Michigan, mid-1990's Date of first publication · 1997 Publisher · Doubleday Narrator · MitchAlbom Point of view · The narrator speaks in the first person for the majority of the novel, with the exception of a few passages in which he had not been present. With the exception of these passages, the narrator provides a subjective view of all other characters introduced. Tone · Mitch's narration uses very basic language, as most of the book is composed of dialogue between him and Morrie, word-for word conversations he has transcribed after having tape recorded them prior to Morrie's death. Mitch's attitude towards Morrie is nothing less than sweet and adoring. Tense · Frequently shifts in tense from present to past; description of past events is relayed through a series of flash backs interspersed throughout present tense narrations. Setting (time) · Early-mid 1990&Otidle;s Setting (place) · West Newton, Massachusetts Protagonist · MitchAlbom (and/or Morrie Schwartz) Major conflict · Morrie grapples to accept his impending death from ALS and is visited each Tuesday by his former star student, Mitch, who has become disillusioned by the popular culture. Rising action · Mitch grows increasingly unhappy with his occupation as a journalist and sees Morrie featured on "Nightline" one night as he is watching television. Climax · Morrie is visited by Mitch for what will be the last time, and finally, after years of trying, gets Mitch to cry openly. Falling action · Mitch attends Morrie's funeral and conducts a conversation with him in his head as he had promised he would, even after his death. Themes · The rejection of popular cultural mores in favor of self-created values; Love or perish; Acceptance through detachment Motifs · Food; Reincarnation and renewal; The media Symbols · Pink hibiscus plant; Morrie's bed; Waves on the ocean

Foreshadowing · One of Morrie's last aphorisms is, "When you're in bed, you're dead." On what will be his last visit to with Morrie, Mitch knows that death is fast- approaching, as Morrie has, after a long battle with ALS, moved from his study to the confines of his bed. Days later, Morrie dies in his bed.

Study Questions and Essay Topics Study Questions What is the significance of the pink hibiscus plant that sits on the ledge in Morrie's study. How is it a metaphor for Morrie's life, as well as the cycle of life in general? The plant is continually used as a metaphor for Morrie's life and for life itself. As Morrie's body gradually deteriorates, so does the condition of the pink hibiscus plant which sits on the window ledge in Morrie's study. With each degeneration of Morrie's health, the plant's pink petals wither and drop off into the soil to decompose. Morrie soon grows reliant on a tank of oxygen which he requires to breathe, and on his aides, family and friends for simple tasks such as eating and going to the bathroom. However, despite such adversity, Morrie, like the plant,"holds on, small but firm" to his life as he nears its end. The hibiscus embodies the concept that all living creatures experience a natural life cycle which inevitably and rightly ends in death; eventually, both Morrie and the plant will die, as all living beings eventually must.

What does Morrie mean by the statement "Love or perish"? Morrie recites a quote by his favorite poet, W. H. Auden, to convey one of his most vital lessons to Mitch: in the absence of love, Morrie says, there is a void that can be filled only by giving of oneself and one's love, and by accepting the love others offer. When love abounds, Morrie tells Mitch, a person can experience no higher sense of fulfillment. In all of his fourteen Tuesday lessons, Morrie teaches that love constitutes the essence of every person, and of every relationship, and that to live without love, as Auden says, is to live with no means for survival. The importance of love becomes especially clear to Morrie as he nears his final days, for without the love of his family and friends, he would quite literally perish, as he depends on them for spiritual and physical endurance.

Explain Morrie's idea of "detachment." What does "detachment" mean to Morrie, and how does he use it to cope with his disease? Determined to accept his own death and the concept of death itself, Morrie consciously "detaches himself from the experience" when he suffers his violent coughing spells, each of which comes loaded with the possibility of his last breath. Morrie derives his method of detachment from the Buddhist philosophy that one should not cling to anything, as everything that exists is transient. In detaching, Morrie is able to step out of his tangible surroundings and into his own state of consciousness, namely for the sake of gaining perspective and composure in a stressful situation. Morrie does not intend to stop feeling or experiencing when he detaches, but, rather, detaches out of a desire to experience wholly. He explains that it is only when he releases himself from a life-threatening experience that he is able to completely let go of his fear, to detach from a situation that renders him terrified and tense. Morrie does not want to die in fear or in pain, and detaches in these frightening moments so that he may accept the impermanence of his life and embrace his death, which he knows may come at any moment.

Suggested Essay Topics What are Morrie's religious values? Does he steep himself in the theology of one religion, or many? How does Morrie's dislike of the media's role in popular culture contradict his willingness to be interviewed by Ted Koppel for the television program "Nightline"? How has Morrie's childhood affected his behavior as an adult? Explain how each of his family members, including his mother, father, stepmother, and younger brother, have affected his development.

What reasons does Morrie give for rejecting the mores prescribed by the popular culture. How has he created his own culture, and what values does it consist of? How does Morrie rationalize his thoughts that aging is growth, and not decay, as most people see it? Explain Morrie's relationship with Ted Koppel. What does Morrie see in Koppel that others fail to? Who inspired Morrie's passion for books and education? What inspired his passion for people? Why did he decide to become a professor of sociology? Quizz (Please check it at the web) Suggestions for Further Reading Auden, W. H. Collected Poems Random House, 1991. Gains, Ernest J. A Lesson Before Dying Random House, 1997. Hanlan, Archie. Autobiography of DyingPondview Books, 1979. Martin, Joe. On Any Given DayPondview Books, 2000. McDaniel, Melissa. Stephen Hawking Chelsea House Publishers, 1994. Schapp, Dick. Flashing Before My Eyes William Morrow & Co., 2001. Schwartz, Morrie. Letting Go: Morrie's Reflections on Living While Dying Walker & Co., 1996. Schwartz, Morrie. In His Own Words: Life Wisdom from a Remarkable Man Walker & Co., 2001. Southard, Samuel. Death and Dying: A Bibliographical Survey Greenwood Press, 1991.

MITCH ALBOM QUOTES

“The way you get meaning in your life is to devote yourself to others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning. ~ MA from Tuesdays

Learn to detach...Don't cling to things, because everything is impermanent... But detachment doesn't mean you don't let the experience penetrate you. On the contrary, you let it penetrate fully. That's how you are able to leave it... Take any emotion--love for a woman, or grief for a loved one, or what I'm going through, fear and pain from a deadly illness. If you hold back on the emotions--if you don't allow yourself to go all the way through them--you can never get to being detached, you're too busy being afraid. You're afraid of the pain, you're afraid of the grief. You're afraid of the vulnerability that love entails. But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, 'All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment. ~ MA from Tuesdays

Accept who you are and revel in that. ~ MA from Tuesdays

You know what really offers you satisfaction? Offering others what you have to give. ~ MA from Tuesdays

The culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn't work, don't buy it. ~ MA from Tuesdays

Here's what I mean by building your own subculture...I don't mean you disregard every rule of your community. I don't go around naked, for example. I don't run through red lights. The little things, I can obey. But the big things--how we think, what we value--those you must choose for yourself. You can't let anyone-- or any society--determine those for you. ~ MA from Tuesdays

Forgive yourself. Forgive others. Don't wait. ~ MA (Tuesdays with Morrie)

The biggest defect we human beings have is our short-sightedness. We don't see what we could be. We should be looking at our potential, stretching ourselves into everything we can become.~ MA (Tuesdays with Morrie)

"Death ends a life, not a relationship." — MA (Tuesdays with Morrie)

"All endings are also beginnings. We just don't know it at the time." — MA (The Five People You Meet in Heaven)

"Lost love is still love. It takes a different form, that's all. You can't see their smile or bring them food or tousle their hair or move them around a dance floor. But when those senses weaken another heightens. Memory. Memory becomes your partner. You nurture it. You hold it. You dance with it. --Eddie's Wife" — MA (The Five People You Meet in Heaven)

"Accept who you are; and revel in it." — MA (Tuesdays with Morrie)

"Holding anger is a poison...It eats you from inside...We think that by hating someone we hurt them...But hatred is a curved blade...and the harm we do to others...we also do to ourselves." — MA (The Five People You Meet in Heaven)

"So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they're busy doing things they think are important. This is because they're chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning." — MA (Tuesdays with Morrie)

"Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you're not really losing it. You're just passing it on to someone else." — MA (The Five People You Meet in Heaven)

"The truth is, once you learn how to die, you learn how to live." — MA (Tuesdays with Morrie)

"All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair." — MA (The Five People You Meet in Heaven)

"Have you ever lost someone you love and wanted one more conversation, one more chance to make up for the time when you thought they would be here forever? If so, then you know you can go your whole life collecting days, and none will outweigh the one you wish you had back." — MA (For One More Day)

"When someone is in your heart, they're never truly gone. They can come back to you, even at unlikely times." — MA (For One More Day)

"You see, you closed your eyes. That was the difference. Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them, too--even when you’re in the dark. Even when you’re falling." — MA (Tuesdays with Morrie: )

More Quotes of Mitch Albom  "I like myself better when I'm with you." — Mitch Albom (TM)  "Life is a series of pulls back and forth... A tension of opposites, like a pull on a rubber band. Most of us live somewhere in the middle. A wrestling match...Which side win? Love wins. Love always wins" — Mitch Albom (TM)  "Love is how you stay alive, even after you are gone." — Mitch Albom (TM)  "Well, for one thing, the culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. We're teaching the wrong things. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn't work, don't buy it. Create your own. Most people can't do it." --Morrie Schwartz — Mitch Albom (TM)  "Laughter is sunshine, it chases winter from the human face." — Mitch Albom (TM)  "Be compassionate," Morrie whispered. And take responsibility for each other. If we only learned those lessons, this world would be so much better a place." He took a breath, then added his mantra: "Love each other or die." — Mitch Albom (TM)  "The truth is, part of me is every age. I’m a three-year-old, I’m a five-year-old, I’m a thirty-seven- year-old, I’m a fifty-year-old. I’ve been through all of them, and I know what it’s like. I delight in being a child when it’s appropriate to be a child. I delight in being a wise old man when it’s appropriate to be a wise old man. Think of all I can be! I am every age, up to my own." Mitch Albom (TM)  "Don't cling to things because everything is impermanent." — Mitch Albom (TM)  "Devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning." — Mitch Albom (TM)  "If you hold back on the emotions--if you don't allow yourself to go all the way through them--you can never get to being detached, you're too busy being afraid. You're afraid of the pain, you're afraid of the grief. You're afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails. But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your heard even, you experience them fully and completely." — Mitch Albom (TM)  "We've got a sort of brainwashing going on in our country, Morrie sighed. Do you know how they brainwash people? They repeat something over and over. And that's what we do in this country. Owning things is good. More money is good. More property is good. More commercialism is good. More is good. More is good. We repeat it--and have it repeated to us--over and over until nobody bothers to even think otherwise. The average person is so fogged up by all of this, he has no perspective on what's really important anymore.  Wherever I went in my life, I met people wanting to gobble up something new. Gobble up a new car. Gobble up a new piece of property. Gobble up the latest toy. And then they wanted to tell you about it. 'Guess what I got? Guess what I got?'  You know how I interpreted that? These were people so hungry for love that they were accepting substitutes. They were embracing material things and expecting a sort of hug back. But it never works. You can't substitute material things for love or for gentleness or for tenderness or for a sense of comradeship.  Money is not a substitute for tenderness, and power is not a substitute for tenderness. I can tell you, as I'm sitting here dying, when you most need it, neither money nor power will give you the feeling you're looking for, no matter how much of them you have." — Mitch Albom (TM)  "Life is a series of pulls back and forth. You want to do one thing, but you are bound to do somehing else. Something hurts you, yet you know it shouldn't. You take certain things for granted, even when you know you should never take anything for granted." — Mitch Albom (TM)

Quotes from other books  "Without love we all are like birds with broken wings." — Mitch Albom

 "You have peace," the old woman said, "when you make it with yourself." — Mitch Albom (The Five People You Meet in Heaven)  "Love like rain, can nourish from above, drenching couples with soaking joy. But sometimes, under the angry heat of life, love dries on the surface and must nourish from below, tending to its roots, keeping itself alive." — Mitch Albom (The Five People You Meet in Heaven)  "Each affects the other, and the other affects the next, and the world is full of stories, but the stories are all one." — Mitch Albom (The Five People You Meet in Heaven)  "Death doesn't just take someone, it misses someone else, and in the small distance between being taken and being missed, lives are changed." — Mitch Albom (The Five People You Meet in Heaven )  "One day can bend your life." — Mitch Albom (For One More Day)  "Sacrifice is a part of life. It's supposed to be. It's not something to regret. It's something to aspire to." — Mitch Albom (The Five People You Meet in Heaven )  "There are no random acts...We are all connected...You can no more separate one life from another than you can separate a breeze from the wind..." — Mitch Albom (The Five People You Meet in Heaven)  "Heaven can be found in the most unlikely corners." — Mitch Albom (The Five People You Meet in Heaven )  "...if you're trying to show off for people at the top, forget it. They will look down on you anyhow. And if you're trying to show off for people at the bottom, forget it. They will only envy you. Status will get you nowhere. Only an open heart will allow you to float equally between everyone." — Mitch Albom  "There is everything you know and there is everything that happens. When the two do not line up, you make a choice." — Mitch Albom (For One More Day)  "People say they 'find' love, as if it were an object hidden by a rock. But love takes many forms, and it is never the same for any man and woman. What people find then is a certain love. And [he] found a certain love with [her], a grateful love, a deep but quiet love, one that he knew, above all else, was irreplaceable." — Mitch Albom (The Five People You Meet in Heaven)  "This is the greatest gift God can give you: to understand what happened in your life. To have it explained. It is the peace you have been searching for." — Mitch Albom (The Five People You Meet in Heaven)  "Going back to something is harder than you think." — Mitch Albom (For One More Day)  "There is no such thing as 'too late' in life." — Mitch Albom

FIVE SECRETS OF LIFE

Award winning author and corporate culture crusader and advocate of global sustainability advocate John B Izzo has written an extraordinary book on attaining and living wisdom. His approach is purely experimental. He asked about 15,000 people to send him names of people who are considered to be wise. The questions posed to them were: Who are the wise elders in your life? Whom do you know ? Who has lived a long time and has something important to teach us about living? Of the 1,000 suggestions he received, he narrowed down his choice through pre- interviews to 235, who were acknowledged as wise. His team conducted one to three hour interviews with all these 235 wise men and women. Some of the questions posed to them were: What brought you the greatest happiness? What are your regrets? What mattered and what turned out not to matter in life? What do you wish you had learned earlier? The findings were tabulated, televised and summed up in a book entitled: The Five Secrets You Must Discover before You Die. The books implies two profound insights. First is the idea that there are really “secrets” to our present life. What the author discovered is that there are indeed secrets which these people discover and thus live a more meaningful lives. Secrets which in fact are obvious to many of us, but we do not really live. The second insight in the title, “Before You Die,” reminds us that there is urgency to discovering what really matters. Many of the friends of the author thought that having the word “die” in the title of the book was depressing will discourage the readers. Some others felt that it was necessary, since it lets the reader know there is urgency to discovering what really matters. The first secret is being true to oneself. The second one is leaving no regrets. The third one is to become love. The next one is to live the moment. The final secret found in almost all these people is giving to life more than one takes. The insights on these five secrets, the author believes, is for people at every stage of life. It is a book for young people who are just starting out on the journey of life. Just as young people who are internet-savvy use it to tap experiences of others with products, the experiences of these 235 people of things that matter can be tapped by others. In this manner we will enrich ourselves, whether we are young or old. In the first chapter the author begins by asking: Why do some people find meaning and die happy? It is because they know the secrets and have found the wisdom to live accordingly. The secrets discovered and discussed are not radically new, but rather they are so universally common among diverse group of people who have found happiness and purpose. In this sense Tolstoy is right when he asserts that “happy families are all alike; but unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” As human beings living in this present time of unparallel technological growth and economic prosperity as a human family we have really no reason to be happy. The amount of knowledge available to us has been exponentially growing for the last two hundred years. The religious therapies and spiritual insights available to us is unparallel. Still we, both as individuals and society, manage to remain unhappy and depressive. It is because we lack knowledge but because we dare not to live the wisdom, treasured in our traditions and found in many of our elders and wise people around us. 1. Be true to your own self “The greatest tragedy of life is to spend your whole life fishing only to discover that it was not fish you were after,” wrote Henry David Thoreau. Unfortunately it is true of many of us. What separates those who live well and die happy from others is that they continually asked themselves whether they were living the life they wanted to live and following their heart toward the answer.

If we are to follow our hearts and be true to ourselves, we must make the choice to live our life consciously. As exhorted by Socrates, we need to live an examined life. Unless we are continuously examining our lives to make sure that it is on target, there is a very good chance that we will end up living someone else’s life. In an interview conducted by Dr Izzo, a 72-year old woman was asked to advice the younger people how to find happiness and purpose. Her answer was insightful. “I cannot do that. In order to tell a person the secret to happiness I would have to sit down with them, look them deeply in the eyes, find out who they are, find out what their dreams are. I say this because the secret to happiness is to be true to your self.” Three guiding questions that will help us examine if we are living lives true to ourselves are: (1) Am I following my heart and being true to my self? (2) Is my life focused on the things that really matter to me? And (3) Am I being the person I want to be in the world? Often the seeds of not being true to our own selves begin very early in our lives, when we begin to compare ourselves to others. A young student would pick up each year a student and would tell him, “I want to be like him.” Enlightenment came to him after many years, when he realized that he was not any of those boys. The path to happiness was not in deciding which one he wanted to be like, but to decide what was most true to him. Being true to ourselves and following our hearts requires tremendous courage. It implies quieting other voices that may want us to follow their dream. Being true to oneself often involved hearing the one voice that calls us, even if others cannot hear it. So to be true to ourselves, we need to cultivate the discipline to listen to ourselves and the courage to follow it. The discipline to listen means setting time aside to ask important questions about ourselves, unlike many others who hardly have time to hear the voices of their own souls. To have the courage to follow the inner voice implies that we resolutely, firmly and lovingly say no to some of the offers and choose others, even though they may not be that convenient or comfortable. A 71-year old physics professor has evaluated the students he taught for 40 years and summed it up: “There is a chasm of difference between those students who were following their hearts and those that are not.” Those who studied physics because of other compulsions struggled. The others “following their hearts worked through the challenges. Years later I would meet many of these students, and those who followed their heart continued to do well, while those who had not seemed to struggle their entire lives. To lead a happy and purposeful lives make us wise and authentic. In the final analysis we are accountable to ourselves. When we are true to ourselves, we are true to others and to God. 2. Leaving No Regrets “The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone,” proclaimed Harriet Beecher Stowe. Regret is possible one thing we all fear the most; that we might look back on our lives and wish that we had done things differently. In fact it is said that what we fear most is not death, but not having lived to the fullest extent possible, to come to the end of our life with our final words being, “I wish I had.” Therefore to find happiness and purpose in life we must embrace the secret of not leaving any regrets. For this we must live with courage, moving toward what we want rather than away from what we fear. To leave no regrets we must face and befriend the inevitable disappointments that life hands over to us. Every choice involves giving up something and taking risks. At the end of our lives we will not regret risks we took and failed. It is the experience of most people that they do not take enough risks. Knowing that we will likely regret the thing we did not try can have a significant effect on how we make decisions. Failure, according to John Lizzo, is not the regret that haunts most people; it is the choice not to risk failure at all. So we must take be basic choice as to whether we will live in fear or focus on what we want to achieve. Each time we play safe, we move farther away from our truest self and plant the seeds of future regret.

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A lady had six unfinished books waiting to be completed. When asked for the reason, she was frank: “All of my life I have left things unfinished. I thought it was just procrastination. But as I reflect on it, I believe I have not finished these books because if I ever do finish them, I would have to let someone read them. And if I let someone read them, perhaps they will tell me that I cannot write. I suppose it is the fear of rejection that has kept me from finishing.” In fact many of us do the same things. For fear of rejection or failure, or because we are not sure we succeed, we die with our books, our dreams, our story inside us. On the other hand we must realize that our lives can never be without some regrets. Regret does serve one important positive function, reminding us of what really matters. And we listen to them, they can keep us from the deeper pool of regret and depression that may lie ahead. But if we regularly check in with the older version of ourselves we are less likely to leave undone that which we are called to do. So the minor regrets that all of us have can motivate us not to lead us to the major regrets concerning the basic nature of our lives. Here are four set of questions that enables us to live without deep regrets: (1) Did I act out of fear today? How do I want to be more proactive tomorrow? (2) Did I act on my convictions today? How do I want to act on them more deeply tomorrow? (3) What step would I take in my life right now if I were acting with courage, not fear? What might I do differently right now if I were living from the perspective of an old person looking back at my life? (4) How am I responding to the setbacks in my life right now? Am I stepping forward or retreating? 3. Becoming Love The Dalai Lama advises us, “If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” In fact, when we reach the evening of our lives, it is only compassion, love and relationships that are meaningful. In fact love is the greatest source of happiness and of regret for most people, when they look back on life. Love is commonly perceived by us as an emotion. When it is about things that really matter, love goes beyond emotion and becomes a choice. Though we may not always “feel” love to another, we can always choose to love him or her. Mother Teresa could hold the hands of a leprosy patient and look at him lovingly. It is because though we do not feel like loving a leper, she had the power “to choose to love this man.” Instantly she could see the beauty within the apparently wretched man. To love and to become a loving person, first we must choose to love ourselves. Unless we fundamentally choose to see ourselves as worthy, we cannot love others. The love of oneself is fundamental to being a spiritually healthy person. Elsa, a victim of World War II, was abandoned by her father and unloved by her mother. One day after prolonged self-doubt and pity, she came to a realization. “At one moment, I realized that if I could not get love I had to ‘become love.’ It is hard to explain, but what I realized was that while I had very little control over whether others loved me, I realized that I had complete control over whether I become a loving person.” She added, “Somehow I knew that if I became a loving person, people could not help but love me.” So genuine transformation can occur when I decide to “become love rather than to seek love.” Researcher John Izzo asked old and fulfilled people what their greatest source of happiness was. They would most of the time refer to spouses, children, parents and friends. “Again and again I saw that those people who focus on the development of deep personal relationships in their lives become happy.” Thus choosing to act with love towards those closest to us and making loving relationships a priority in our lives enable us to live wise and fulfilled lives. Then there is need to actualize our love in day to day dealing with the people we meet. Actually rather than waiting for the “great moments of love,” it is easier to do little acts of kindness. Smiling to others, speaking warmly to someone, be there for a friend when he needs me may look unimportant, but they are the

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key moments of we becoming love ourselves. Making a stranger feel at home or visiting a sick person transforms us as much as they. They make us more sensitive and compassionate. Izzo is convinced: “Although we have little control over whether we get love, we have almost complete control over whether we become love.” And he adds, “The people I spoke to had made a conscious choice to become love in their lives and in the process they found happiness.” It is not primarily receiving love that matter. Nor does the feeling of love matter much. But we can become love and in the very process we change and discover the meaning of our own lives. So one of the secrets of a wise and fulfilled person is his or her ability to become a love to others around him or her. Thus by practicing compassion, we ourselves become compassion. That is the greatest gift we can give to ourselves. 4. Living the Moment Leo Buscaglia puts is well, “Life lived for tomorrow will always be just a day away from being realized.” One of the secrets of living a realized life is to learn to live the moment and enjoy it fully. One of the common experiences of middle aged or old people is that life goes too fast. One old day expresses it so: “When you are young, 60 years seems like an eternity. But after you have lived it, you realize it is but a moment.” If life goes by so quickly, then one of the ways of finding fulfillment in life is to get more out of the time we have, to find a way that each moment and each day become great gifts. At its simplest, living the moment means to be fully there at every moment of our lives, not to judge it, but to live it. It means we must focus neither on the past nor on the future, but experience each moment with gratitude and purpose. This means that we have the power at each moment to choose contentment and happiness. So living the moment means judging my life less and enjoying it more. Living the moment does not really mean to take each moment as it comes, it means something more significant. There was a 84 year old man actively involved in a variety of things. He would reply to the question, “How are you?” always with a resounding enthusiastic, “I’m Here!” What he really means is: “I am grateful to be alive and I recognize what a tremendous gift it is.” What a contrast from many of us who would jammer: “Well, I’m here, anyway.” If the time is perceived as a gift then we are grateful for it. An old scientist succinctly expressed the meaning of living the moment thus: “Every morning I wake up and say a little prayer – thank you God for another day. Being a scientist, I am in awe at existence when I think about this miracle we are living; about me as a conscious entity, here in the Milk Way with this sense and capacity. I ask God to not let me squander this day, but that as I go through my day I will be aware of what a gift it is to live. At the end of the day, before I go to sleep, I recount all the good things that happened, however small and say thank you for this day.” That is why the Roman philosopher Seneca could say: “We should count each day as a separate life.” So we need to make that we are living our life rather than simply planning our life. If we are not careful we find ourselves forever getting through things on our way in order to arrive at our goal or happiness. It is not that we should not plan or year for things we have not yet achieved or experienced. But we need to realize that happiness is always found when we rare able to live in the present moment. One of the common things we hear about terminally ill patients is that two things happen. On the one hand, time sped up. Suddenly there was a sense that time was speeding by. On the other hand, they also realize that time has slowly down. Suddenly each moment and each day was treasured and lived more fully. Often for the first time in their lives nothing was seen as something to “get through.” So if we can live now fully, relish gratefully every moment we have learnt the secret of a fulfilling life as well as death. 5. Giving More than Taking 102

“An individual has not started living until he can rise about the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity,” said Martin Luther King, Jr. It is tempting to live focused entirely on my own needs. But that does not satisfy me or others. When we look at satisfied human lives, we see that those people who know that they have given to life more than they took from it, have somehow stumbled onto happiness. In fact, we have a great deal of control over what we give, but almost none over what we get. Each day we have power to give without limit. We can choose to be kind, to sere, to be generous and thus leave the world better in some way. There is something in all of us that longs to make a contribution while we are here. While talking with older people it becomes apparent that many of us long for connection to something larger than ourselves. Giving, in fact, connects ourselves to something larger. One physicist puts it this way: “The more I study physics, the more I believe in how much things are connected. There is a connectedness in the universe we do not understand.” Then he added, “sooner or later you realize that you are not going to take anything with you but you can leave something behind.” Leaving behind may be a humble tree to a grand organization. So one biologist could say: “I can look on a map and know there are green places than will outlive me. I know that I have helped build several strong organizataions that also will have a life beyond me. For some people their legacy is their children, for me it was my work.” One of the ways of gaining insight and wisdom is to learn to lose ourselves. The loss of self is about seeing that we are connected to something much larger, something that had a life before us and that will outlive us. So we become significant in our loss, because we are part of a larger entity. There is no better way to lose ourselves than to dedicate our life to giving, to leaving the world better than we found it. This connects us to the future and links us to the past. This enables us to discover ourselves in the loss that we experience in our ageing and dying. Thus we can lose ourselves in the larger story and be happy. A North American tribal story, as narrated by John Izzo, illustrates this. When the teenagers came back exited with boat full of fish and handed it over to the waiting father, they were raring to go back and catch more of the fish they had found. But the father told them, “No we have enough already. We must leave some for others.” Then the teenagers spend two days helping other tribe members mend their nets so that they too could catch. In fact we live in a borrowed world. The fish did not belong to us. It was borrowed from generations past and held in trust for many generations yet to come. So the father taught the teenagers that giving to others is the greatest pleasure a human being can have. As teenagers we believe that happiness will be found in the number of experiences we have or possession we gain. Later, we discover that love, service and connection to larger purpose are the true food of the human soul. In that act of giving or acting out a bigger story, happiness finds us. (Kuruvilla Pandikattu Financial Chronicle)

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KUSHWANT SINGH ON DEATH

Book review: ABSOLUTE KHUSHWANT: Khushwant Singh, HumraQuraishi; Penguin Books India, Rs. 250 NIRUPAMA SUBRAMANIAN

It is a book of short write-ups of his thoughts on a number of subjects, some of it autobiographical ABSOLUTE KHUSHWANT: Khushwant Singh, HumraQuraishi; Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11, Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-110017. Rs. 250. Khushwant Singh has been such a presence in our lives — as the editor of The Illustrated Weekly of India and the author of Train to Pakistan; as the sardar in the Mario Miranda cartoon of him sitting in a light bulb, pen in hand, with a pile of books and a bottle of Scotch by his side; all those Banta-Santa jokes; his candid speak on sex and whiskey — that it is difficult to imagine a day when he won't be peppering us with his wit and humour. This is why in the medley of bite-sized essays the 95-year-old sardar dishes out in his latest book, Absolute Khushwant, the first to grab your attention is the one titled “On Death”. True to type, there is nothing gloomy about his musings on the inevitable curtain call, only the wish that when it comes, it should be painless and swift. As an agnostic, he does not believe in a life hereafter or in reincarnation. He wanted a Baha'i burial but gave it up because they would not give him the corner spot he was first promised. So he has settled for the electric crematorium now. His epitaph Having never believed in the convention of not criticising the dead, it is safe to assume he will not be bothered by any unkind obituaries. He says he has never taken himself seriously, and the epitaph he wrote for himself many years ago — just the kind of Khushwantism we will miss when he is no longer around — has the self-deprecation of a learned sophisticate.

“Here lies one who spared neither man nor God/Waste not your tears on him, he was a sod/Writing nasty things he regarded as great fun/Thank the Lord he is dead, this son of a gun.” But for a man who, years ago, wrote a modest little obituary of himself as he imagined it would appear in The Tribune — “among those who called at the late sardar's residence were the PA to the chief justice, several ministers, and judges of the high court” — Khushwant can leave this world in the knowledge that the send-off for him will be grander than that, considering his sizable footprint on Indian journalism and writing. His editorship of the Illustrated Weekly saw its readership soar; the magazine was never the same under the two editors who came after him. His weekly column, With Malice Towards One and All — a mix of current affairs, political and social gossip and the mandatory sardar joke — continues to be widely read. He has authored more than 50 books, among which Train to Pakistan is an acknowledged tour de force. His History of The Sikhs remains the definitive work on the subject. And these days, he is working on a novel. Write-ups Absolute Kushwant though is clearly a quickie. A joint project with journalist-writer HumraQuraishi, it is a book of short write-ups of his thoughts on a number of random subjects, some of it autobiographical, much of it already well-known. It is evidently more of an “as-told-to” type of book. Even so, it is engaging and readable. Aside from death, he talks about religion, on life as an old man, on his daily routine, on himself, his heroes, his battles against religious fundamentalism, and of course, sex. There is an essay in which he tells us he does not rate himself too highly as a writer, but says “I can and have written as well as R.K Narayan, Mulk 104

Raj Anand, Malgaonkar, Ruth Jhabvala, NayantaraSahgal and Anita Desai.” About his controversial support for Indira Gandhi, her son Sanjay and the Emergency, Khushwant has no regrets. “Even now after all these years, I think it was necessary at that time. I had no idea then that it would be misused and abused.” He talks about his close friendship with Sanjay Gandhi, and says had he lived to rule India, the country would not have remained a democracy. “Would I still have supported him? Oh, I don't know. He would have probably got around me. He could be real charmer. He had been good to me. He put me in Parliament. Even The Hindustan Times — it was he who called up Birla and told him to give me the job.” Political confusion?Opportunism?Perhaps. But at least he is honest. source:http://www.hindu.com/br/2010/10/05/stories/2010100551821600.htm Kushwant Singh “Death At My Doorstep” Review from MouthShut.com "One can deny the existence of God, but one cannot deny the existence of death" - The Secret of Death by BholaNath. Life is the most precious gift given to us by the almighty, which we all love & attempt to give our best shot to make it worth living. Whatever we do, we do to live. We don’t talk of death lightly - as it is regarded as tasteless, ill mannered & depressing. But Mr.Khushwant Singh a man in his 90s is aware that his tryst with destiny is drawing near, though he continues to outlive many on this earth. Do you know that he himself was on the hitlist of the terrorists? He disclosed in this book. In Death At My Doorstep, a collection of obituaries written over the years, he presents the dead in death, as in life good, bad or ugly. Even though it talks about death & dead, it is not depressing at all as it opens those closed doors beyond which we have never seen because most of it all happened half a century ago. His discussions with Dalai Lama, Acharya Rajneesh, V.P. Singh (ex-Prime Minister), Dr.SatyaVratShastri, etc., are a treat to read. Very few people have dates with death apart from those who take their own lives or are convicted by court to hang. He has given an example of Z.A. Bhutto who was hanged in Pakistan. 13 pages about Bhutto takes the reader to a different world, which narrates his last few days in prison before he was hanged. His struggle to survive & failure to do so makes the reading more interesting. He was even found crying in prison & was heard saying, "marnabahutmushkilhotahai". His meeting with Tikka Khan, who was sent to Bangladesh with permission to loot, rape & kill anyone it suspected of being disloyal to Pakistan, is a sucker punch. You will be proud of him. This book introduces people like M.O.Mathai, Rajni Patel, DhirenBhagat, Mulk Raj Anand, R.K.Narayan, Harbhajan Singh & many others and unfolds their relationship with the writer. ChetanAnand is not unknown to anyone but did we know that he was very close to Khushwant Singh? Then there was a drift in their relations. Thats a very emotional write up.

There are many other known characters like ProtimaBedi, PrabhaDutt (BarkhaDutt of NDTV is her daughter), Amrita Shergil, which surprises the reader. How inspiring is this, "I will retire when I am taken to the cremation ground"? This was Khushwant Singh’s reply, when he was 69 years old & was asked when will he retire? I think the message is crystal clear that there is no age for retirement. Marna to sab kohai, lekiniskeliye koi jeena to nahinchhoddeta. This book though deals with the subject of death but gives you the inspiration to live life to fullest. May be I’ll read it again after few months.

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DEATH: PHILOSOPHICAL REFLECTIONS Nishant A. Irudayadason (ACPI Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Death spares no one. We can affirm with certainty that we all fall prey to death sooner or later. Modern society wants to evade the question of death. The death of many people unknown to us in war, famine or disaster comes to us only as sensational news through media. Death of others is perceived as external to us as if such it can never happen to us. We like to consider our own death as external either by denying it subtly or by placing it at the final stage of life with a self-assurance that we have not yet reached there.

Death is perceived as an admission of human failure; it is hard to accept the fact of death in a world dominated by science and technology. Contrary to Bergson’s claim that by recognizing other living beings end up dying, human person is convinced of his/her own death, intoxicated by the idea of progress, we think we can indefinitely postpone the hour of death. Edgar Morin admits that his unrealistic hope of immortal existence has led him to divorce from death before he could admit that death is rooted in the mystery of life. We have the right to be scandalized by all repressive forms of death as would say Herbert Marcuse (1898 – 1979) according to whom we should neither glorify death nor fear it.

The false triumphal of homo technologicus thought capable of overcoming death having failed, scholars began to come to terms with death. The path of death should lead us further on the path of life and the latter should lead us deeper into the former. Life and death are inseparably related to one another. Death belongs to life. The act of dying is the act of the living. Michel de Montaigne (1533 –1592) has rightly said that philosophy is to learn to die.

According to Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), human freedom has no control over death that escapes him/her and can never give meaning to life. The very fact I am condemned to die makes my life absurd. If it is possible for me to find meaning in life, it is not because I am being-unto-death, but because I can exercise freedom when I exist. Thus Sartre considers death as a reality outside existence. With a little imagination, I can represent my corpse while I exist, but once I am dead, it is others who know my death, make funeral rites and cherish me in their memory. It is then absurd to say my death is my own.

For Albert Camus (1913-1960) too, life is absurd because it leads to death. Even if life is meaningless, it is worth living. I have no right to resign myself to the absurdity of life. Valuing life and revolting against its absurdity are related imperatives. The preciousness of life depends on the variety of experiences and challenges encountered. Camus places himself in the tradition of Kierkegaard* and Nietzsche. The former values life by virtue of its precariousness and vulnerability and the latter by his affirmation that one cannot say yes to joy without saying yes to sorrow. Amor Fati, this strange love of fate, is what makes humans want to live a dangerous life in a boat on a rough sea, leading nowhere. Freud holds a view similar to that of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 –1900). On the one hand life is dominated by the tendency to seek pleasure, life instinct, eros, but it is counterbalanced by the death drive, thanatos.

For Martin Heidegger (1889 –1976), who revives the Pre-Socratic tradition, human person is “being- towards-death.” Death does not lie at the end of life; it pervades the entire life. As soon as I am born, I enter into the flow of time spanning from birth to death. Death is the final condition, the end of my being-thrown. Death is my way of being-in-the-world. This is the finitude that characterizes all human experience. However, death is unique and singular to everyone. If there is something that is not shared, it is my death; it is my own, but it remains non-representable. It always escapes me when even when I will be dead, I do not possess it. Death is a part of my everything, which escapes me.

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But in reality, we do not think of death; we just shy it away as if it happens only to others. We take refuge in our everydayness that brushes aside or even buries the thought of death. Yet death is at the very heart of my being-in-the-world. So for Heidegger death is to be thought of in order to bring out my being-towards-death. This is the very condition of my freedom as well, for by evading the thought of death, I escape from the authentic “my-self” to hide in the unauthentic “they-self.” By my being-thrown into the world, I am originally thrown into the “they-self,” which makes me evade the question of death and of nothingness thus distracting and alienating me from “my-self.” Death is what is the most authentic in my life. However Dasein wants to flee from death because of its anxiety before nothingness. This nothingness has its origin in the being-towards-death. This nothingness is the ontological origin even of the dialectical negation. Care is the way out of anxiety and consciousness is an appeal for care, which allows Dasein to get out of the anxiety of its originary being-towards-death.

In reaction to Heidegger, Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995) affirms that the identification of death to nothingness suits the death of the Other in murder. But this nothingness presents itself also as a kind of impossibility. Outside of my conscience, the Other does not appear as the Other and his/her face is an expression my moral impossibility of annihilation. This is not a pure and simple impossibility that presupposes the possibility precisely challenged by the face of the other, but the challenge is already housed in this very possibility. This challenge comes from my neighbour whose face alone tells me that I am responsible for his/her death. It is in the death of the other that I am responsible to the extent of including me in death. I am responsible for the other because he is mortal. Death of the other therefore comes first. It uncovers the face of the Other, which is an expression of the commandment, “Thou shall not kill.”

The later writings of Jacques Derrida (1930 –2004) deal extensively with death along with other related themes such as survival (sur-vie) and mourning. With his usual play of words, he deconstructs Heidegger’s claim of death as the own most possibility only of Dasein. Heidegger makes a crucial distinction between dying and perishing; only humans die, animals perish. This distinction is not linguistic but drawn from language. Thanks to language humans can imagine and represent death. Thus Heidegger’s distinction between properly dying and merely perishing hinges on this. Death, for Heidegger, is therefore the impossibility of Dasein’s existence. But this impossibility is the possibility most proper to Dasein.

Derrida evokes the image of border to represent death in terms of the impossibility as possible. It involves a certain step (pas) to cross over the border. The French word “pas” can also be translated as “not,” thus bringing out the impossibility of crossing over. Death is figure both of passage and non-passage. Thus the question of the possibility of death is aporetic, for Heidegger, demarcating the narrow border between dying and perishing. Derrida contests Heidegger’s shift from the aporetic character of death, changing the impossible into the own most possibility of Dasein.

In so far as death is the impossibility of Dasein’s existence, it also marks the impossibility of Dasein’s relation to the phenomenon of death. Dying therefore is common both to the authentic and inauthentic forms of Dasein’s existence as well as to all other living beings. There is no way of clearly distinguishing dying from demise or from perishing. Derrida calls into question the anthropocentricism that underpins Heidegger’s analysis of death. The distinguishing character of Dasein is lost in so far as it cannot experience death as death. A more careful and nuanced philosophical discussion on death would go beyond traditional distinctions that have been used to separate human death from animal death and would be aporetic. Reference

Camus, Albert. A Happy Death. Trans. Richard Howard. New York: Vintage, 1995.

Critchley, Simon. The Book of Dead Philosophers. New York: Vintage, 2009.

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Derrida, Jacques. Aporias: Dying – Awaiting (One Another at) the Limits of Truth. Trans. Thomas Dutoit. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993.

Derrida, Jacques. The Gift of Death. Trans. David Wills. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996.

Freud, Sigmund. Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Trans. James Strachey. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1990.

Heidegger, Jacques. Being and Time. Trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. New York: Harper and Row, 1962.

Levinas, Emmanuel. God, Death and Time. Trans. Bettina Bergo. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000.

Levinas, Emmanuel. Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority. Trans. Alphonso Lingis. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None. Trans. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Modern Library, 1995.

Sartre, Jean-Paul. Being and Nothingness: A Phenomenological Essay on Ontology. Trans. Hazel E. Barnes New York: Washington Square Press, 1993.

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EVIL: THE DESIRE TO DENY DEATH & TO BE DIVINE Kuruvilla Pandikattu Abstract: Without attempting to give a philosophical analysis of the origin of evil, the author presents some of the dynamics at work in the emergence of evil, based mostly on Paul Ricoeur and Ernest Becker. Ricoeur points out that the disproportion that characterizes human beings makes evil possible, though not necessary. The progress from bios to logos has enabled us greatly and also made evil possible. As a continuation of the philosophical analysis, Becker showed the psychological dynamics at work, whereby evil multiplies itself in the very attempt at eliminating it. Both the thinkers trace the existence of evil (and also goodness and freedom) to the disproportion or in-betweenness in the human condition. So this article is a phenomenological description of the emergence and progress of moral evil in individual human beings and human society.

1. Introduction “The essence of man is discontent divine discontent; a sort of love without a beloved, the ache we feel in a member we no longer have” (Ortega y Gasset 1940) “Divine discontent” and “denial of death” are characteristics of contemporary humans. And they are also intimately connected to the emergence and existence of evil. In this essay an attempt is first made to relate evil, at least moral evil, to the basic human condition of disproportionality. For this we draw insights from two prominent thinkers of the last century: philosopher Paul Ricoeur and psychologist Ernest Becker. Our aim in this article is not to give any ontological basis for evil, but to understand phenomenologically, some dynamics underlying the prevalence and progress of evil. We shall see that evil perpetuates itself in the very process of fighting it. After first analysing the fallibility in human nature, we try to explore the symbolism of evil, and then in the final section, see the dynamics of evil perpetuating itself in the very struggle against death, and consequently evil itself.

2. The Fallible Human Paul Ricouer has been one of the most outstanding philosophers of the last century. In Ricoeur’s first major work, Freedom and Nature: The Voluntary and the Involuntary (1950), one finds an expression of a perennial theme central to his anthropology, namely the two-dimensional character of all constituent features of human existence. Contrary to Sartre’s claim that there is radical difference between consciousness or the for-itself and materiality or the in-itself, a difference that pits the for-itself’s (pour-soi) freedom against the in-itself’s (en-soi) sheer facticity, Ricoeur holds that the voluntary and involuntary dimensions of human existence are complementary. There is, to be sure, no seamless harmony between these two dimensions. Each person has to struggle with the conflict between them. But this conflict is what ultimately makes one’s freedom and fallibility genuinely mine, what gives me my distinctive identity, and what enables evil in oneself and in society (Stanford 2008). Ricoeur extends his account of fallibility in Fallible Man and The Symbolism of Evil, both published in 1960. In these works he addresses the question of how it is possible for us to go wrong, to have a bad will. In Fallible Man he argues that there is a basic disproportion between the finite and the infinite dimensions of a human being. This disproportion is epitomized by the gap between bios, or one’s spatiotemporally located life, and logos, or one’s reason that can grasp universals. This disproportion shows up in every aspect of human existence. It is manifest in perception, in thought and speech, in evaluation, and in action. By reason of this disproportion, we are never wholly at home with ourselves and hence we can go wrong. Hence, we are fallible.

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This disproportion does not, in spite of Sartre, render our existence absurd, according to Ricoeur. Rather, the very disproportion that makes us fallible and makes human evil possible is also what makes goodness, knowledge, and achievement possible. It is that which both distinguishes us from one another and at the same time makes it possible for us to communicate with each other, through logos (Stanford 2008).

2. 1 Description of Human Fallibility The fact that humans can be observed from various different perspectives, all of which may be justified but not always compatible with each other, indicates a crisis in the self-understanding of the subject. The analysis of the fundamental possibility of human will in Le volontaire et l’involontaire has shown that there is a break, a wound, a non-agreement within humans. This non-agreement makes it impossible for them to see themselves transparently. Ricœur is not satisfied just with this analysis. The fundamental structure of the Will, which he has traced out, is only a preliminary result in view of the fact of human failures and fallibility. Since it is an absurd fallibility, it cannot be captured though the description of its own nature. Furthermore it presents an alien object which can be philosophically approached only through concrete experiences. Thus, for Ricoeur, fallibility provides an understanding of the possibility of evil and human freedom without implying their necessity. As such, fallibility is a concept open to elaboration from a purely reflective basis. Fallibility as the possibility for evil is taken as a primary characteristic of human existence. With this concept of fallibility human existence is the place or possibility for the manifestation of evil (FC, 14 and Ihde 1971: 113.). In two different ways Ricœur tries to capture and describe this fallibility. The transition from innocence to guilt can be understood only in concrete expressions of human experiences, that is, through the act of confession, or avowal (Bekenntnis), which later leads one to take responsibility for one’s actions. In La symbolique du mal, he examines therefore the symbolic language of the experiences of guilt. But before that he studies the breaking point of evil. Thus he continues his description of the fundamental human possibilities which he had begun and executed in a preliminary and abstract form in Le volontaire et l’involontaire by interpreting the structures of the Will as fallible. Because of the opaque and absurd characteristic of guilt, its description (which emerges mainly out of a convergence of concrete signs) could only be an “empirie” and not an “eidetic”, a description of it. Fallibility describes a weakness which makes evil possible. It lies in the “structure of mediation between the poles of the finite and the infinite nature of man” (FM 9).

2.2 Interpretation of Fallibility Ricœur has sought to show the situation of the human condition as being in between the finite and the infinite, as having a certain in-betweenness or disproportion, all of which is constitutive of fallibility or the possibility of the Rupture. Thus in relation to knowledge there is a disproportion of finite perspective and infinite word; in relation to willing there is a disproportion between finite character and infinite well-being; and in relation to feeling there is a disproportion between pleasure and happiness. This could be illustrated as follows (Thorer 1984: 36-37): DISPROPORTIONILTY IN HUMANS

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Infinite Orientation Finite Fulfilment Mediation Knowing Infinite Word (Verb) Finite Perspective Pure Imagination Willing Well-being Character Respect Feeling Happiness Pleasure Mind Original Existential Human

Affirmation Difference Mediation

The human as fallible means that the propensity to and possibility of moral evil is present in its constitution. Fallibility results out of the tension-relationship between the finite and the infinite. Analogously to Kant’s categories of qualities (Reality-Negation-Limitation), Ricœur also differentiates three categories in the human constitution, which are characterised through tension: the original affirmation, the existential difference and human mediation. The moment of the infinite, which we have seen in three levels, (namely the Verb, the idea of Blissfulness and the Mind seeking happiness) are the very moments through which the original affirmation is enriched, perfected and spiritualised. The original affirmation may be trampled upon by the existential negation, which presents to the man as a perspective, as character and as life feeling. “Human being is the joy of Yes in the sadness of the finite” (FM 140). This means “that man is capable of joy, joy through fear, and in overcoming the fear, that is the basic reason for all disproportion in the affective region and the source of affective vulnerability” (FM 140). Fallibility is exposed through evil. Otherwise we can say that fallibility is the condition or the potential for evil. Thus fallibility has a double sense. It is the breaking point of evil, so to say, the weak point in the chain. In this sense fallibility is the original situation, from which evil emerges. The evil in fact points to an original situation of innocence. The depravity of human beings lies in a longing for a non-guaranteed perfection. The original situation of innocence is nowhere present. It can be imagined through the existing situation determined by evil and set apart from it. So one can imagine this original situation of innocence, as we normally find in myths. Thus the myths of the fall are always connected with the myths of creation and those of innocence. Over and above these, fallibility means not just the breaking point of evil, but also the capability to sin and to commit evil. It requires only one step to move from the vulnerability to the actuality of evil. “To say that man is fallible is to affirm at once that the limitation of one being, that does not fall with itself, is the original weakness out of which evil emerges. Further, evil can emerge out of this weakness only because it dares” (FM 189; Thorer 37).

2.3 Fallibility as a Symbol

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Ricœur’s examination of the voluntary and the involuntary has made us aware that in man there is a break, a wound, a disproportion, an in-betweenness, a non-agreement within himself. In the fallibility of humans, Ricœur seeks to grasp precisely this world and to characterise it. The tensional relationship between the infinite orientation in humans and the finite fulfilment turns out to be the reason and location for fallibility. The mediation which succeeds in the object of knowledge and in the works of practice, remains in the affective region as constant conflict and tension. Pleasure is more than a sign, it is a promise and a guarantee of happiness. This happiness would be sought after through avoir, pouvoir and valoir. For wo/man in every finite fulfilment there exists the danger of shutting off the affective dimension and of regarding the finite fulfilment as the whole. Fulfilment, which could serve as a symbol of the desired blissfulness tends to deviate itself to an idol. The symbolised structure, through which Ricœur sees certain linguistic signs as characterised, corresponds to the human Will. It is the same for the location and for vulnerability. Humans can go against their own nature by forgetting the symbolic structure of the finite fulfilments, crossing over from symbols to idols. The fallibility of man describes and characterises more precisely than the preceding Eidetic of the Will the location in which symbolic speech is proper and significant. At the same time it shows that fallibility is a situation which we can consider for its own sake and which lets itself be accessible to us through actual concrete acts of the evil (sin). Thus our reflection points to the transition from the mere possibility to the concrete actuality of evil and further to an expression of the actual evil in confession, which means, in the realm of symbols. Thus the symbol serves humans in their self-expression.

3 The Symbolism of Evil Fallibility as a symbol leads us to appreciate the symbolics and to trace how evil reveals itself in terms of the primary sybols of stain, guilt and sin, as indicated by Ricoeur.

3.1 The Symbol as the Starting Point for Thinking The examination of human fallibility has shown, where and how the evil in man can originate. The transition from innocence to guilt is not to be understood otherwise than as an execution of the confession by which man accepts his responsibility for his actions in symbolic language. In La symbolique du mal, Ricœur is engaged with the concrete expressions of the human experience of evil in symbols (which we also meet in myths and in primary confessions). Before he actually proceeds with his task of studying the symbolism of evil through its concrete expressions, Ricœur gives an account of his procedure. “How do we move from the possibility of human evil to its actuality, from fallibility to its act?”(SB 9; Thorer, 39). This is the initial question for him. He wants to capture the transition from fallibility to its actualization by concentrating on the symbolism of evil from concrete human experiences. What he intends to do is a phenomenology of guilt, which repeats itself on its way to the imagination and to the projection of the confession of guilt. The phenomenology screens and orders the materials which would be the object of human thought. Thus there is an intimate connection between philosophical speculation and the pre-reflective expression (of guilt for example) in symbols. When one reflects on the philosophical expressions of evil, one is led back to the original expressions of it in the myths. Then there is the move from the myths to its building blocks – the symbols. The symbols characterise evil as blindness, as ambiguity, as anger. They refer to an oppressive experience and man in turn tries to grasp this experience with the help of language. The experience of evil forces itself to be expressed, so that all the speaking - including the philosophical reflection - about it refers back to its original experience. The area of investigation in La symbolique du mal is limited, as Ricœur points out. It refers to a particularly important area: how evil touches on a central and crucial relationship between man and the sacred, to which the myth gives witness. So it is to be expected that an examination in this area will give us a deeper understanding of the myths and symbols. In this crisis, the whole vulnerability of reality is evident:

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“Because evil is in a special way the critical experience of the sacred, the threatening rupture of this relationship of man with the sacred may be urgently felt, and [also] how man is dependent on the power of this sacred” (SB 12; Thorer 1984: 39).

3.2 The Symbols of Evil: Stain, Sin, Guilt Ricœur elaborates his understanding of evil in terms of the primary symbols of stain, sin and guilt. In La symbolique du mal, the imagination goes back to the farthest region where crime and misfortune are not to be differentiated. The Stain, which is associated with definite actions, is something analogous to a material thing. Evil action brings with it punishment. Evil action effects suffering. So the symbolism of Stain is the first explanation and rationalisation of suffering. The imagination of a stain points to a judging and avenging instance, which though remaining anonymous, concretises itself in the laws and rules of society. When the guilty is accused of a crime, there is also a simultaneous expectation of responsibility, of proper punishment and with it a hope that the fear and consequences of this crime would thus disappear (Bradley 2005: 444f). A new step in the development of evil is the building up of sin consciousness. This consciousness presupposes a personal relationship to the God who invites us. Sin shows that aspect of guilt felt in the presence of God. Biblically speaking, sin is the breaking of the covenant. The next stage of internalisation is reached with the formation of guilt consciousness. Guilt shows the subjective moment of the crime (to be differentiated from sin, the objective, ontological moment). Guilt consciousness consists of the fact that one is intensively aware of one’s responsibility and of his ownership. In this sense, it is anticipated and internalised, leading to pricks of conscience. The imagination of evil develops from a material understanding (Stain) of evil to a deeper internalisation (Guilt). In this process the symbols of the earlier stages of development are not just denied or negated, but are carried over to the later stages of development. Thus there exists a connection between all these symbols. “So there is a circular movement taking place between all the symbols: the last symbol relives the sense of the preceding symbol, but the first gives the last the full symbolic power” (SB, 176. Cf. Thorer, 41). If one wants to name the concept towards which the development of the original symbols of evil leads, then one is confronted here with the paradox of the “Non-free Will”. This concept – which is not identical with that of fallibility, but which is to be understood only in connection with the symbolism of evil, and which in turn gives it its significance – is characterised by Ricœur as having three moments (Thorer 1984: 42): a. Positivity: Evil is a power b. Expressivity: Evil presupposes the free decision of man and comes as a temptation c. Infection: If humans give in to evil, first it is an outward act and then it spreads. It becomes contagious. At the same time, turning itself over, it tends to make the agent of the action to be innerly a slave. So far we have analysed the philosophical contribution of Paul Ricouer on evil, which could be enhanced by the insights of social psychologist Ernest Becker, as we proceed to the next section.

4. Evil as Denial of Evil ( and of Mortality) Another prominent and insightful thinker of the last century who dwelt elaborately on evil is Ernest Becker in his two classics (Becker 1973 & 75). Like Riceour, he too felt that evil finds its driving force in the human’s paradoxical nature: “in the flesh and doomed with it, out of the flesh and in the world of symbols and trying to continue on heavenly flight” (Becker 96). Becker humbly reminds humanity that we are still animals, with all of the instincts and seemingly irrational chaotic impulses befitting all animals. Yet, paradoxically, humanity is fitted with a sense of reason that wishes to attain a “destiny impossible for an animal” (Becker 1975: 96). What we perceive as evil, in every form, is essential to any temporal creature. It is a part of the very properties of humanity that we exhibit qualities of moral evil, according to Becker.

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Ernest Becker provides part of the answer to the problem of evil; that is, the paradoxical nature of the human, just as Ricoeur does. Humanity is both animal and rational, and there lies the source of evil. A human being is a finite, limited and fallible being that is controlled mostly by animal urges based mostly around survival, while at the same time possessing a reasonable mind capable of transcending these things and reaching out to the Divine. Humans are capable of creating evil as part of their nature, choosing evil in the very search for the good. Our desire to eliminate evil may itself be our undoing (Hoffman 2002).

4.1 Participating in the Immortality Project Why is it that of all the creatures on the earth human beings are the only ones to wage war, commit genocide, and build weapons of mass destruction? Social psychologist Ernest Becker raised this question and then proposed an insightful answer in his book, Escape from Evil (Becker 1975), going one step further than Ricoeur. Becker’s answer begins by recognizing that of all creatures, human beings alone seem to be the ones who are conscious of their own mortality. This awareness gives rise to an anxiety that most people would rather not feel. So people cope with this situation by essentially choosing sides. They choose to align themselves with the side of life rather than of death, or identifying themselves with “immortality projects” (Hoffman 2002). People align themselves with the side of life by seeking anything that promises to sustain and promote their own lives, such as power or money. Alignment with power can have two faces: malignant power over others, as the power created by autocrats, or benevolent power, as in the power vested in the skills of a physician. Likewise, alignment with money can result in exploitation or philanthropy. It may be noted that people also seek to align themselves with the side of life by seeking alignment with things that endure beyond a single individual’s lifetime. These can include making a “lasting” contribution to a field of art, literature, scientific inventions or knowledge. These can also include involvement with religious movements or specific cultures. These larger than life phenomena in some way assure the perpetuation of the significance of the people associated with them, a kind of immortality (Hoffman 2002). From this point of view, a threat to a person’s culture, religion, or “lasting contributions” is viewed as a threat to that person’s own immortality project. The immortality project must be defended at all costs. This is the reason why some conflicts in the world can become so intractable. It’s not just my country or tribe that is being threatened, but the very significance of my own life. Becker says, “This is what makes war irrational: each person has the same hidden problem, and as antagonists obsessively work their cross purposes, the result is truly demonic” (Becker 1975: 109). People also try to align themselves with the side of life by aligning themselves with what is “good.” This is because life is associated with “good” as opposed to death, which is “bad.” Becker argues that this alignment with good may also be a major cause of evil. To follow his reasoning it is necessary to make a little digression to understand the psychological concepts of shadow and projection (Becker 1973).

4. 2 Projecting the Shadow of the Shadow The psychological shadow is the dark complement of the consciously expressed personality. It represents those personal qualities and characteristics that are unacceptable to the conscious ego. To borrow a fitting image from the poet Robert Bly, the shadow is like a sack that you drag behind you everywhere you go and into which you toss all the aspects of yourself that you are ashamed of and don’t want to look at (Bly 1998). The psychological shadow is much like the normal human shadow: everybody has one; when you face toward the light you can’t see your own shadow; and sometimes everybody else but you can see it. Oftentimes these disowned contents of the psychological shadow are “projected” onto someone else. Then we see “out there” what is really “in here”. Typically the person we choose to project onto is not entirely innocent. He or she has some “hooks” on which we can hang our projections. If we’re ashamed of

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our own anger, we find a slightly irritated person and view her as totally enraged. That’s how projection of the shadow works. People with inflated self esteem find it easy to see themselves as being almost always on the side of the “good.” Becker’s argument is that in the process of taking the side of life and of the good, we project our shadow onto an enemy. Then we try to kill it, and in this process perpetrate evil, without our willing it. Psychologist Roy F Baumeister also reaches a similar conclusion. He holds that a major cause of evil in the world is the idealistic attempt to do good. Some examples include the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the Thirty Years’ War in Europe, in which Catholic and Protestant troops devastated much of Germany in attempting to wipe out the “evil” version of the Christian faith represented by the other side, murders committed to prevent the “evil” of abortion, and the Stalinist and Maoist purges in Russia and China. He points out that “studies of repressive governments repeatedly find that they perceive themselves as virtuous, idealistic, well-meaning groups who are driven to desperately violent measures to defend themselves against the overwhelmingly dangerous forces of evil” (Baumeister 1997). For instance, in many ways the Nazis were idealists. The Nazi SS was composed of the elite, the noblest of the population; yet they willingly committed the most horrible deeds. The Nazis wanted to transform their society into a perfect one. They wanted to root out the elements that they considered “evil”. Yet they almost never considered their own actions as evil, but perhaps at worst an unfortunate necessity in carrying out a noble enterprise (Baumeister 1997: 34, 38). The Nazis projected filth and evil on to the Jewish people and then tried to establish a “pure” state by eliminating the Jews. One of the professed motivations of racist lynchings in Western society was to maintain the “purity” of the white race. Many animal species, including coyotes, wolves, and prairie dogs have been irrationally persecuted by humans in the name of eliminating “varmints” and “filth” and “disease-carriers.” Enemies are “dirty.” Historically, nations have been aroused to war by the depiction of the enemy as pure evil. In cases of reciprocal violence, such as war, each side tends to see itself as the innocent victim and the other as the evil attacker. If we, as a nation, do not do our own “shadow” work, we will simply respond to violence with more of the same and in this process we ourselves will perpetuate evil. Once a person has decided that some other is evil (or devil), the decision helps justify behaviours that tend to belittle or punish the other. Such behaviours are precisely the behaviours that justify the other person in seeing the first person as evil. This reciprocal projection and dehumanization usually leads to a downward spiral. Patterns of violence often grow worse over time. The typical pattern for marital violence and violence among strangers is for minor insults and slights to escalate more or less slowly to physical attacks and violent aggression (Baumeister 1997: 283). As Baumeister points out, one of the reasons why violence tends to spiral downward is that there is typically a huge discrepancy between the importance of the act to the perpetrator and to the victim. Baumeister calls this the magnitude gap (1997: 18). For example, rape is a life-changing event for a woman, while it may be only a few moments of excitement and limited satisfaction to the rapist. Whether an SS officer murdered 25 or 30 Jews in a given day was a matter of additional work for the SS officer, but a matter of life and death for the 5 additional Jews. Hoffman notes that the magnitude gap functions in a way that makes evil worsen over time. In a pattern of revenge, as occurs in terrorism and occupation, the roles of victim and perpetrator are constantly being reversed. The perpetrator (A) may think he has harmed the victim (B) only at a level of, say, one damage point. The victim (B) however feels harmed at a level of ten points. To exact tit-for-tat revenge, B perpetrates harm on A at a level of ten, which from B’s point of view may seem only fair, but from A’s point of view may feel like harm at a level of 100. This of course seems totally out of proportion and requires further revenge as A and B switch roles again (Hoffman 2002).

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Becker’s analysis offers a way understanding the instances of genocide and mass murder in human history. He suggests, chillingly, that one way to gain the illusion of psychological power over death is to exert physical control over life and death. He points out that the killings in the Nazi concentration camps increased dramatically toward the end of the war, when the Nazis began to have a sense that they might actually lose. Mass slaughter gave the illusion of heroic triumph over death/evil. In Becker’s terms, people who maximize their own take are maximizing the “side of life” narrowly understood as their own welfare. They act to eliminate the “evil” of their own impoverishment. They ignore the fundamental fact of our human interrelatedness, a fact attested to by spiritual traditions throughout history (Hoffman 2002) and in this process aggravate the evil they wish to alleviate.

5. Conclusion In this article we had the modest aim of indicating some of the dynamics in the working out of evil. Ricoeur’s understanding of the disproportion that characterizes human beings was, he came to conclude, insufficient to account for occurrences of actual will. No direct, unmediated inspection of the cogito, as Descartes and Husserl had proposed, could show why these evils, contingent as each of them is, in fact came to be. Recognizing the opacity of the cogito in this respect confirmed his suspicion that all self- understanding comes about only through “signs deposited in memory and imagination by the great literary traditions.” The progress from bios to logos has enabled us greatly and also made evil possible. Thus we have arrived at an antinomy and this is where philosophy has to stop. By refusing to accept mortality as part of their very nature, humans deny their animality and attempt to be divine. In this very process of denial of death and anxiety, the humans join the “immortality projects” and disrespects the disproportion that is intrinsic to the human condition, enabling evil to emerge. As a continuation of the philosophical analysis, Becker showed the psychological dynamics at work, whereby evil multiplies itself in the very attempt at eliminating it. Though both the thinkers trace the existence of evil to the disproportion or in-betweenness in the human condition, it has not been our aim to give any account of the origin of evil. So Tao Te Ching’s insight, formulated 2500 years ago, is valid even today. There is no greater misfortune than to underestimate your enemy. Underestimating your enemy means thinking that he is evil. Thus you destroy your three treasures and become an enemy yourself (Lao-Tzu 1995).

References Baumeister, Roy F. (1997). Evil: Inside Human Cruelty and Violence. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company. Becker, Ernest (1973) The Denial of Death, Simon & Schuster. Becker, Ernest. (1975). Escape from Evil. New York: The Free Press. Bly, Robert (1988). A Little Book on the Human Shadow. San Francisco: Harper & Row. Flaming, Don (2006) “The Ethics of Foucault and Ricoeur: An Underrepresented Discussion in Nursing” Nursing Inquiry 13/3, 220-227. Hoffman, Chris (2002) “The Question of Evil” available at http://www.hoopandtree.org/qx_of_evil.htm, June 2008.

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Hoffman, Chris. (2000). The Hoop and the Tree: A Compass for Finding a Deeper Relationship with all Life. San Francisco: Council Oak Books. Ihde, Don (1971), Hermeneutic Phenomenology: The Philosophy of Paul Ricœur. Northwestern Univ Press, Evanston. Lao-Tzu. (1995). Tao Te Ching (Trans. by S. Mitchell). Available online: [http://rhino.harvard.edu/elwin/pJoy/toatechingNoFrame.html] Mitchell, Stephen. (1988). Tao Teaching: A New English Version with Foreword and Notes. New York: Harper & Row. Morrison, Bradley T (2005) “Stewardship Models of Pastoral Care, Counselling and Supervision: The Commonians Meet Ricoeur at Worship,” Pastoral Psychology 53/5 May 2005, 436-445. Ortega y Gasset, José (1940) “Historical Reason,” Lecture in Buenos Aires Oct. 1940. Pandikattu, Kuruvilla, Idols to Die, Symbols to Live: Dynamic Interaction between Language, Reality and the Divine. Intercultural Pub, New Delhi, 1999. Ricoeur, Paul (1998) Critique and Conviction, trans. Kathleen Blamey, New York: Columbia University Press. Ricœur, Paul (1971)., Die Fehlbarkeit des Menschen. Phänomenologie der Schuld II. M. Otto (tr.). Freiburg/Br. (Translation of Finitude et Cultpabilité.) Abridged as FM Ricoeur, Paul (1974) “Nature and Freedom” in his Political and Social Essays, eds. David Stewart and Joseph Bien (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1974). Ricoeur, Paul (1986) From Text to Action (1986, Eng. tr. 1991, hereafter TA) Ricœur, Paul (1990)., Philosophie de la volonté Vol II L’home faillible Philosophie de la volonté: Finitude et Culpabilité, Livre I: L’homme faillible. Livre ll: La Symbolique du mal (Philosophie de l’spirit, 1960) Abridged as FC. Ricoeur, Paul (1995) “Intellectual Autobiography” in The Philosophy of Paul Ricoeur, ed. Lewis E. Hahn (Chicago: Open Court, 1995), 16. Ricoeur, Paul, (2004) Interview with Richard Kearney in Kearney, ed., On Paul Ricoeur: The Owl of Minerva, Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing. Ricœur, P., Symbolik des Bösen. Phänomenologie der Schuld II. M. Otto (tr.) Freiburg/Br 1971 (Hereafter SB). Stanford (2008) “Paul Ricoeur” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, available at http://plato.stanford.edu/ entries/ ricoeur/, Accessed on July, 2008. Thorer, Josef (1984) Die Liturgische Symbolik im Lichte der Symboltheorie Paul Ricœurs: Ein interdisziplinäres Gespräch zum Verständnis der Symbole im Blick auf die christliche Initiation (Ph. D. Dissert.). Innsbruck: University of Innsbruck Watts, Michael (2006) “Disproportionate Sacrifices: Ricoeur’s Theories of Justie and the Widening Participating Agenda for Higher Education in UK,” Journal of Philosophy of Education, 40/3, 3-01-311.

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MAN'S SEARCH FOR MEANING: An Introduction to Logotherapy

Viktor Frankl's 1946 book Man's Search for Meaning chronicles his experiences as a concentration camp inmate and describes his psychotherapeutic method of finding a reason to live. According to Frankl, the book intends to answer the question "How was everyday life in a concentration camp reflected in the mind of the average prisoner?" Part One constitutes Frankl's analysis of his experiences in the concentration camps, while Part Two introduces his ideas of meaning and his theory of logotherapy. According to a survey conducted by the Book-of-the-Month Club and the Library of Congress, Man's Search For Meaning belongs to a list of "the ten most influential books in [the United States]." (New York Times, November 20, 1991). At the time of the author's death in 1997, the book had sold 10 million copies in twenty-four languages. The book’s title in German was Ein Psycholog erlebt das Konzentrationslager, and the title of the first English language translation was From Death-Camp to Existentialism. The books common full English title is Man's Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy, although this subtitle is often not referred to on modern book covers. Experiences in a concentration camp

Frankl identifies three psychological reactions experienced by all inmates to one degree or another: (1) shock during the initial admission phase to the camp, (2) apathy after becoming accustomed to camp existence, in which the inmate values only that which helps himself and his friends survive, and (3) reactions of depersonalization, moral deformity, bitterness, and disillusionment if he survives and is liberated. Frankl concludes that the meaning of life is found in every moment of living; life never ceases to have meaning, even in suffering and death. In a group therapy session during a mass fast inflicted on the camp's inmates trying to protect an anonymous fellow inmate from fatal retribution by authorities, Frankl offered the thought that for everyone in a dire condition there is someone looking down, a friend, family member, or even God, who would expect not to be disappointed. Frankl concludes from his experience that a prisoner's psychological reactions are not solely the result of the conditions of his life, but also from the freedom of choice he always has even in severe suffering. The inner hold a prisoner has on his spiritual self relies on having a faith in the future, and that once a prisoner loses that faith, he is doomed. An example of Frankl's idea of finding meaning in the midst of extreme suffering is found in his account of an experience he had while working in the harsh conditions of the Auschwitz concentration camp: ... We stumbled on in the darkness, over big stones and through large puddles, along the one road leading from the camp. The accompanying guards kept shouting at us and driving us with the butts of their rifles. Anyone with very sore feet supported himself on his neighbor's arm. Hardly a word was spoken; the icy wind did not encourage talk. Hiding his mouth behind his upturned collar, the man marching next to me whispered suddenly: "If our wives could see us now! I do hope they are better off in their camps and don't know what is happening to us." That brought thoughts of my own wife to mind. And as we stumbled on for miles, slipping on icy spots, supporting each other time and again, dragging one another up and onward, nothing was said, but we both knew: each of us was thinking of his wife. Occasionally I looked at the sky, where the stars were fading and the pink light of the morning was beginning to spread behind a dark bank of clouds. But my mind clung to my wife's image, imagining it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look. Real or not, her look was then more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise.

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A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth -- that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way – an honorable way – in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment. For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, "The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory...." [2] Frankl also concludes that there are only two races of men, decent men and indecent. No society is free of either of them, and thus there were "decent" Nazi guards and "indecent" prisoners, most notably the kapo who would torture and abuse their fellow prisoners for personal gain. His concluding passage in Part One describes the psychological reaction of the inmates to their liberation, which he separates into three stages. The first is depersonalization—a period of readjustment, in which a prisoner gradually returns to the world. Initially, the liberated prisoners are so numb that they are unable to understand what freedom means, or to emotionally respond to it. Part of them believes that it is an illusion or a dream that will be taken away from them. In their first foray outside their former prison, the prisoners realized that they could not comprehend pleasure. Flowers and the reality of the freedom they had dreamed about for years were all surreal, unable to be grasped in their depersonalization. The body is the first element to break out of this stage, responding by voracious eating and sleeping. Only after the partial replenishing of the body is the mind finally able to respond, as “feeling suddenly broke through the strange fetters which had restrained it” (111). This begins the second stage, in which there is a danger of deformation. As the intense pressure on the mind is released, mental health can be endangered. Frankl uses the analogy of a diver suddenly released from his pressure chamber. He recounts the story of a decent friend who became immediately obsessed with dispensing the same violence in judgment of his abusers that they had inflicted on him. Upon returning home, the prisoners had to struggle with two fundamental experiences which could also damage their mental health: bitterness and disillusionment. The last stage is bitterness at the lack of responsiveness of the world outside—a “superficiality and lack of feeling...so disgusting that one finally felt like creeping into a hole and neither hearing nor seeing human beings any more” (113). Worse was disillusionment, which was the discovery that suffering does not end, that the longed-for happiness will not come. This was the experience of those who – like Frankl – returned home to discover that no one awaited them. The hope that had sustained them throughout their time in the concentration camp was now gone. Frankl cites this experience as the most difficult to overcome. As time passed, however, the prisoner's experience in a concentration camp finally became nothing but a remembered nightmare. What is more, he knows that he has nothing left to fear anymore, "except his God" (115). So Frankl's meaning in life is to help others find theirs.

Quotes from Man’s Search for Meaning * "A man can get used to anything, but do not ask us how." * "We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." * "The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory." * "Nietzsche's words, 'He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how.'" * "When we are no longer able to change a situation – just think of an incurable disease such as inoperable cancer – we are challenged to change ourselves." 119

* "Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him – mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp." * "We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: (1) by creating a work or doing a deed; (2) by experiencing something or encountering someone; and (3) by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering." * "It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life – daily and hourly. Our answer must consist not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual." * "Man is capable of changing the world for the better if possible, and of changing himself for the better if necessary." * "Set me like a seal upon thy heart, love is as strong as death." (Cf. Song of Solomon 8:6) * "We have come to know man as he really is. After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord's prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips." * "A man who for years had thought he had reached the absolute limit of all possible suffering now found that suffering had no limits, and that he could suffer still more, and more intensely." * "Woe to him, when the day of his dreams finally came, found it to be so different from all that he had longed for!" * "We were not hoping for happiness – And yet we were not prepared for unhappiness." * "Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!" * "An incurable psychotic individual may lose his usefulness but yet retain the dignity of a human being. This is my psychiatric credo." * "Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom." * "Freedom, however, is not the last word. Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth. Freedom is but the negative aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect is responsibleness. In fact, freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness. That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast."

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THE LAST LECTURE

Randolph Frederick "Randy" Pausch (October 23, 1960 – July 25, 2008) was an American professor of computer science and human-computer interaction and design at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Pausch learned that he had a terminal case of pancreatic cancer in September 2006. He gave an upbeat lecture entitled "The Last Lecture: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams" on September 18, 2007 at Carnegie Mellon, which became a popular YouTube video and led to other media appearances. He then co-authored a book called The Last Lecture on the same theme, which became a New York Times best-seller. Pausch died of complications from pancreatic cancer on July 25, 2008. Pausch was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and grew up in Columbia, Maryland. After graduating from Oakland Mills High School in Columbia, Pausch received his bachelor's degree in computer science from Brown University in May 1982 and his Ph.D. in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University in August 1988. While completing his doctoral studies, Pausch was briefly employed at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center and Adobe Systems.

Computer science career Pausch was an assistant and associate professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Virginia's School of Engineering and Applied Science from 1988 until 1997. While there, he completed sabbaticals at Walt Disney Imagineering and Electronic Arts (EA). In 1997, Pausch became Associate Professor of Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction and Design, at Carnegie Mellon University. He was a co-founder in 1998, along with Don Marinelli, of CMU's Entertainment Technology Center (ETC), and he started the Building Virtual Worlds course at CMU and taught it for 10 years. He consulted with Google on user interface design and also consulted with PARC, Imagineering, and Media Metrix. Pausch is also the founder of the Alice software project. Pausch received two awards from ACM in 2007 for his achievements in computing education: the Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award and the ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education Award for Outstanding Contributions to Computer Science Education.[8] He was also inducted as a Fellow of the ACM in 2007.

Cancer and death Pausch was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and underwent a Whipple procedure (pancreaticoduodenectomy) on September 19, 2006 in an unsuccessful attempt to halt his pancreatic cancer. He was told in August 2007 to expect a remaining three to six months of good health. He soon moved his family to Chesapeake, Virginia, a suburb near Norfolk, to be close to his wife's family. On March 13, 2008, Pausch advocated for greater federal funding for pancreatic cancer before the United States Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies. In the week prior to this, he had been hospitalized in order to have needle aspiration of pleural effusion in his right lung. On May 2, 2008, a positron emission tomography (PET) scan showed that he had very tiny (5 millimetres (0.20 in) or less) metastases in his lungs and some lymph nodes in his chest. He also had some metastases in his peritoneal and retroperitoneal cavities. On June 26, 2008, Pausch indicated that he was considering stopping further chemotherapy because of the potential adverse side effects. He was, however, considering some immuno-therapy-based approaches. On July 24, on behalf of Pausch, a friend anonymously posted a message on Pausch's webpage stating that a biopsy had indicated that the cancer had progressed further than what was expected from recent PET scans and that Pausch had "taken a step down" and was "much sicker than he had been". The friend also stated that Pausch had then enrolled in a hospice program designed to 121

provide palliative care to those at the end of life. Pausch died from pancreatic cancer at his family's home in Chesapeake, Virginia on July 25, 2008 at the age of 47. He is survived by his wife, Jai, and their three children, Dylan, Logan, and Chloe.

Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams Pausch delivered his "Last Lecture", titled Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams, at CMU on September 18, 2007. The talk was modeled after an ongoing series of lectures where top academics are asked to think deeply about what matters to them, and then give a hypothetical "final talk", with a topic such as "what wisdom would you try to impart to the world if you knew it was your last chance?" Before speaking, Pausch received a long standing ovation from a large crowd of over 400 colleagues and students. When he motioned them to sit down, saying, "Make me earn it," someone in the audience shouted back, "You did!" During the lecture, Pausch was upbeat and humorous, alternating between wisecracks, insights on computer science and engineering education, advice on building multi-disciplinary collaborations, working in groups and interacting with other people, offering inspirational life lessons, and performing push-ups on stage. He also commented on the irony that the "Last Lecture" series had recently been renamed as "Journeys", saying, "I thought, damn, I finally nailed the venue and they renamed it." After Pausch finished his lecture, Steve Seabolt, on behalf of Electronic Arts—which is now collaborating with CMU in the development of Alice 3.0 —pledged to honor Pausch by creating a memorial scholarship for women in computer science, in recognition of Pausch's support and mentoring of women in CS and engineering. CMU president Jared Cohon spoke emotionally of Pausch's humanity and called his contributions to the university and to education "remarkable and stunning". He then announced that CMU will celebrate Pausch's impact on the world by building and naming after Pausch a raised pedestrian bridge to connect CMU's new Computer Science building and the Center for the Arts, symbolizing the way Pausch linked those two disciplines. Brown University professor Andries van Dam followed Pausch's last lecture with a tearful and impassioned speech praising him for his courage and leadership, calling him a role model.

Quotes from The Last Lecture The Disney-owned publisher Hyperion paid $6.7 million for the rights to publish a book about Pausch called The Last Lecture, co-authored by Pausch and Wall Street Journal reporter Jeffrey Zaslow. The book became a New York Times best-seller on April 28, 2008. The Last Lecture expands on Pausch's speech. The book's first printing had 400,000 copies, and it has been translated into 46 languages. It has spent more than 85 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list, and there are now more than 4.5 million copies in print in the U.S. alone. Despite speculation that the book would be made into a movie, Pausch had denied these rumors, stating that "there's a reason to do the book, but if it's telling the story of the lecture in the medium of film, we already have that." - When there’s an elephant in the room introduce him - Brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want something badly enough. They are there to keep out the other people. - If there’s anything I want to do so badly, I should have already done it. - We can’t change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand. If I’m not as depressed as you think I should be, I’m sorry to disappoint you.

* Work and Play (Pray) Well Together - Tell The Truth. All The Time. No one is pure evil.

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- Be willing to apologize. Proper apologies have three parts: 1) What I did was wrong. 2) I’m sorry that I hurt you. 3) How do I make it better? It’s the third part that people tend to forget…. Apologize when you screw up and focus on other people, not on yourself. - Show gratitude. Gratitude is a simple but powerful thing. - Find the best in everybody…. Wait long enough, and people will surprise and impress you. It might even take years, but people will show you their good side. Just keep waiting. - If you want to achieve your dreams, you better learn to work and play well with others…[you have] to live with integrity. - It’s very important to know when you’re in a pissing match. And it’s very important to get out of it as quickly as possible. - Until you got ice cream spilled on you, you’re not doing field work.

* Collaboration, Treating Others with Respect - Never found anger a way to make things better. - How do you get people to help you? You can’t get there alone. People have to help you and I do believe in karma. I believe in paybacks. You get people to help you by telling the truth. Being earnest. I’ll take an earnest person over a hip person any day, because hip is short term. Earnest is long term. - Loyalty is a two-way street. - Get a feedback loop and listen to it. Your feedback loop can be this dorky spreadsheet thing I did, or it can just be one great man who tells you what you need to hear. The hard part is the listening to it. - You can’t get there alone. People have to help you and I do believe in karma. I believe in paybacks. You get people to help you by telling the truth. Being earnest. - Loyalty is a two way street.

* Persistence and Hard Work - When you are doing something badly and no one’s bothering to tell you anymore, that’s a very bad place to be. Your critics are the ones still telling you they love you and care. - Don’t bail: the best gold is at the bottom of barrels of crap - Don’t complain, Just work harder. [showing picture on screen] That’s a picture of Jackie Robinson. It was in his contract not to complain, even when the fans spit on him. You can spend it complaining or playing the game hard. The latter is likely to be more effective. - Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted…. I probably got more from that dream [of playing professional football] and not accomplishing it than I got from any of the ones that I did accomplish. - We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand. - Have something to bring to the table, because that will make you more welcome. - Get a feedback loop and listen to it. Your feedback loop can be this dorky spreadsheet thing I did, or it can just be one great man who tells you what you need to hear. The hard part is the listening to it. - Don’t complain. Just work harder. That’s a picture of Jackie Robinson. It was in his contract not to complain, even when the fans spit on him. - Be good at something, it makes you valuable. - Find the best in everybody. Just keep waiting no matter how long it takes. No one is all evil. Everybody has a good side, just keep waiting, it will come out.

* Fun, Wonder, Living Your Dream - Decide if you’re a Tigger or an Eyeore. I’m a Tigger. [Tigger is a fictional tiger-like character; Eyeore is an unbelievably loveable donkey who is dismally gloomy, very quiet and a bit depressed.] - It is not about achieving your dreams but living your life. If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself, the dreams will come to you. 123

- Never underestimate the importance of having fun. I’m dying and I’m having fun. And I’m going to keep having fun every day, because there’s no other way to play it….Having fun for me is like a fish talking about the importance of water. I don’t know how it is like not to have fun… - Never lose the child-like wonder. It’s just too important. It’s what drives us. Help others. When it comes to men that are romantically interested in you, it’s really simple. Just ignore everything they say and only pay attention to what they do. It’s that simple. It’s that easy.

* Risk-taking - You can tell the pioneers by the arrows in their backs. But at the end of the day, a whole lot of people will have a whole lot of fun. - Better to fail spectacularly than do something mediocre. [Randy Pausch gave out a First Penguin award each year when he was teaching to the biggest failure in trying something big and new because he thought this should be celebrated. First Penguins are the ones that risk that the water might be too cold.] - The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. - If you’re going to do anything that pioneering you will get those arrows in the back, and you just have to put up with it. I mean everything that could go wrong did go wrong. - You’ve got to get the fundamentals down because otherwise the fancy stuff isn’t going to work. - When you see yourself doing something badly and nobody’s bothering to tell you anymore, that’s a very bad place to be. Your critics are your ones telling you they still love you and care. - Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted. - Head fake learning is absolutely important, and you should keep your eye out for them because they’re everywhere. - It’s pretty easy to be smart when you’re parroting smart people. - Be prepared. Luck is truly where preparation meets opportunity.

* Parenting and Kids - The best piece of parenting advice I’ve ever heard is from flight attendants. If things get really tough, grab your own oxygen mask first. - About his pancreatic cancer: It’s unlucky, but it not unfair. We all stand on a dartboard and some of us randomly get hit by pancreatic cancer. But my children won’t have me for them and that’s not fair. - Someone’s going to push my family off a cliff pretty soon and I won’t be there to catch them and that breaks my heart. But I have some time to sew some nets to cushion the fall so that seems like the best and highest use of my time and I better get to work. - I’m sorry I won’t be around to raise my kids. It makes me very sad but I can’t change that fact, so I did everything I could with the time I have and the time I had to help other people (Importance of people instead of things). - [not a direct quote] but Randy implores parents to always indulge your children’s wild ideas (he talks about how important it was that his parents let him decorate his walls with math formulas, despite the negative impact on their house’s resale value) He says: “If you’re going to have childhood dreams you should have great parents who let you pursue them and express your creativity.” I have a theory that people who come from large families are better people because they’ve just had to learn to get along.

* Daring to Dream - It is Important to have specific childhood dreams. (For example, Randy wanted to play football in the NFL, write an article for the World Book Encyclopedia, experience the Weightlessness of Zero Gravity, be Captain Kirk from Star Trek, work for the Disney Company.) 124

- Be good at something; it makes you valuable…. Have something to bring to the table, because that will make you more welcome. - I’ve never understood pity and self-pity as an emotion. We have a finite amount of time. Whether short or long, it doesn’t matter. Life is to be lived. - To be cliché, death is a part of life and it’s going to happen to all of us. I have the blessing of getting a little bit of advance notice and I am able to optimize my use of time down the home stretch. - I probably got more from that dream and not accomplishing it than I got from any of the ones that I did accomplish. - Somewhere along the way there’s got to be some aspect of what lets you get to achieve your dreams. First one is the role of parents, mentors, and students. - It’s not about how to achieve your dreams. It’s about how to lead your life. If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself. The dreams will come to you.

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THE PUPPET

Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Gabo) (Believed as Marquez's farewell to the public life)

If for a moment God would forget that I am a rag doll and give me a scrap of life, possibly I would not say everything that I think, but I would definitely think everything that I say.

I would value things not for how much they are worth but rather for what they mean.

I would sleep little, dream more. I know that for each minute that we close our eyes we lose sixty seconds of light.

I would walk when the others loiter; I would awaken when the others sleep.

I would listen when the others speak, and how I would enjoy a good chocolate ice cream.

If God would bestow on me a scrap of life, I would dress simply, I would throw myself flat under the sun, exposing not only my body but also my soul.

My God, if I had a heart, I would write my hatred on ice and wait for the sun to come out. With a dream of Van Gogh I would paint on the stars a poem by Benedetti, and a song by Serrat would be my serenade to the moon.

With my tears I would water the roses, to feel the pain of their thorns and the incarnated kiss of their petals...My God, if I only had a scrap of life...

I wouldn't let a single day go by without saying to people I love, that I love them.

I would convince each woman or man that they are my favourites and I would live in love with love.

I would prove to the men how mistaken they are in thinking that they no longer fall in love when they grow old--not knowing that they grow old when they stop falling in love. To a child I would give wings, but I would let him learn how to fly by himself. To the old I would teach that death comes not with old age but with forgetting. I have learned so much from you men....

I have learned that everybody wants to live at the top of the mountain without realizing that true happiness lies in the way we climb the slope.

I have learned that when a newborn first squeezes his father's finger in his tiny fist, he has caught him forever.

I have learned that a man only has the right to look down on another man when it is to help him to stand up. I have learned so many things from you, but in the end most of it will be no use because when they put me inside that suitcase, unfortunately I will be dying.

Translated by Matthew Taylor and Rosa Arelis Taylor

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