Tuesdays With Morrie

3 Pages 850 Words

"Tuesdays with Morrie" (TWM) is more than just a dying man's last words. It is an inspirational recount of a man's life -- a man whose passion for the human spirit has continued to live long after his last breath.
You could say there are two stories within TWM. One is the story of a man and a disease. The other is the story of a professor of social psychology who has come to understand that life's complexities can be broken down into simple truths.
This book was not planned; it came about after Mitch Albom, by chance, saw his old professor on ABC's Nightline being interviewed by Ted Koppel about what it was like to be dying of ALS, more commonly known as Lou Gherig's disease. Mitch had lost track of his Brandeis University professor and college mentor shortly after he graduated and settled in Detroit as a sports writer.
Albom was surprised and saddened to learn that Morrie was dying and quickly got in touch with his old professor. What started as a reunion of old friends turned into the project of a lifetime.
Mitch and Morrie subsequently spent the next sixteen Tuesdays together exploring many of life's fundamental issues -- family, marriage, aging and culture to name a few. Morrie was giving his last lecture while Mitch was writing his final thesis.
Take aging -- an issue many struggle with. As his disease progresses, Morrie finds himself dealing with aging in a more concentrated way than most. When Mitch asks him how he is able to refrain from being jealous of the young, Morrie says, "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." With wonderful insight, Morrie continues, "We all yearn in some way to return to those days when we were completely taken care of -- unconditional love, unconditional caring. Most of us didn't get enough." Now if that isn't getting the mo...