Tuesdays with Morrie, Mitch Albom recounts the afternoons he spent with his old college professor, Morrie Schwartz, after discovering that Morrie was dying from ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig's disease). For anyone interested in the study of death and dying, the book is a tremendous resource. When we speak about death speculatively or theoretically, many of us fantasize about living a long healthy life and then dying quite suddenly in one's sleep. Morrie's medical condition provides the polar opposite, a slow wasting away, often in agonizing pain. Albom describes the effects of the ALS later in the book:
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 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? (Albom 131)
The horrifying way in which Morrie's situation contradicts most people's wish for a quiet swift death, however, is not received by Morrie with horror. Instead, Morrie (as befits an educator) treats the ALS as basically a learning experience, and tries to offer it up to Mitch in the same way. In some sense, of course, what Morrie is learning is that the subjective experience of such things is different from the perception of them as an outsider: to anyone who cannot move his own head, it must seem like something horrifying an unimaginable. But Morrie is quick to observe to Mitch that there are no innate qualities to the experience he is undergoing -- the most important aspect is still his own subjective perception of the experience, which is something he has control over:
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. (Albom 155)
In other words, what is most disturbing to the outsider about Morrie's death does not seem that way to Morrie himself. As he would tell Ted Koppel in his "Nightline" interview, "My dignity comes from my inner self." (Schwartz 2007). He refuses to be embarrassed, perhaps because the sorts of things he is undergoing is the sort of thing everyone might potentially undergo. A baby can't walk or wipe its ass either, and we were all babies once.
The experience of having a baby is, in fact, one that Morrie singles out as being the most meaningful in life: he believes having children is the only route to "learn how to love and bond in the deepest way." I personally disagree with this statement, largely because I think there are many different ways to form communal bonds, and biological bonds are only one. Does this statement apply to people who can only adopt children? Does it apply to LGBT people who don't automatically engage in child-rearing practices, but who do form intense social communities that care for each other? In reality, I think the better lesson about how to love and bond in a deep way is given by Morrie when he discusses the issue of trust. Here, he tells Mitch "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." (Albom 61). In some sense, human existence with or without children is like falling in the dark: the bonds we make, we make because we trust people to catch us, as they trust us to catch them. This experience might be qualitatively different with a child, because...
Mitch and Janine also talk to Morrie about marriage. Morrie calls it an important life experience all should have. In learning about another within marriage one continues to learn about oneself. By the 11th Tuesday Morrie has become extremely helpless. In this session, Mitch is able to shed his self-consciousness about Morrie's increasingly infantile needs, in order to help Morrie breathe, which is now very, very difficult. They also hold
Tuesdays With Morrie People react in unpredictable ways to death. If someone we love dies suddenly in an accident, we know what to do. We have to arrange for burial and mourn our loved one. But many people do not die suddenly. They get sick, go to the doctor, find out they have a fatal or potentially fatal disease, and often live for some time after that diagnosis. People aren't always
For instance, Mitch graduates from collage, begins his career, and lets his work consume him. Morrie asks if he had found someone to share his heart with, if he was giving to his community, and if he was at peace with himself. Mitch wonders what happened to him and is embarrassed (34). In reality what happened to Mitch is what has happened too many before; he went to work
Tuesdays With Morrie Physically: How is Morrie eating? "He was eating mostly liquid supplements, with perhaps a bran muffin tossed in until it was mushy and easily digested." "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 than anything else." "He had begun to cough while eating, and chewing was a chore." How is Morrie talking? "When you're in
He sometimes admits he is afraid, but for the most part, he is very dignified and brave in how he faces death. He is also remarkable candid, and that is quite appealing too. There is another reason that I identify with him as well, and that is because he helps Mitch, even though he is dying. He is very selfless, and he worries more about other people than he
Existentialists look at life differently, and so does Morrie. Where others would become depressed about their growing dependency on others, Morrie sees it as a chance to "experience" being a baby again, something that was important in his life but he no longer remembers. He has a different way of looking at things, and this seems like a better way to manage the stresses of life. Not eternal optimism,
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