Tuesdays with Morrie

by Mitch Albom

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?’ ”

“The truth is, Mitch,” he said, “once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.”

“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.”

know we’re deficient in some way. We are too

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.

Don’t let go yet, I added quickly. Morrie forced a smile. “No. Not yet. We still have work to do.”

“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.”

“Forgive yourself before you die. Then forgive others.”

“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.

“If I could have had another son, I would have liked it to be you.”

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.

“Tell you what. After I’m dead, you talk. And I’ll listen.”

Death is as natural as life. It’s part of the deal we made.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Death ends a life, not a relationship.”

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.

“Love…you,” he rasped. I love you, too, Coach. “Know you do…know…something else…” What else do you know? “You…always have…”

there is no such thing as “too late” in life. He was changing until the day he said good-bye.

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.