Tuesdays with Morrie

by Mitch Albom

“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.

Making him laugh felt like the most important thing I could do. The truth is, I wasn’t very comfortable around Morrie at the beginning. Watching him drool water when he tried to drink, the way his head listed to the side like a dead weight, the droopy flesh of his aged body, it all made me uncomfortable. But Morrie was not easily embarrassed. “Pay no attention to this body,” he told me, “it’s not me. It’s the carton I was shipped in. Look in my eyes. I’m still here. Don’t treat me like I’m already dead.” I have learned to that - to look in the eyes not the face, to listen to the soul not the voice. Morrie taught me that.