HW 22 - Illness & Dying Book Part 1

Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom

Published by Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group; Random House Inc. in 1997

First 1/3 of the book - Pgs. 1 - 61

Precis of "The Classroom" (Pgs. 32 - 38)

A lot of people wanted to see Morrie now, seemingly because he was more interesting now - he could tell people what to expect. When I was in college, I believed in all the things we talked about: I wanted to have a happy, fulfilled life, I wanted to help people, I wanted to go places. Instead, I stayed in the same place, unsatisfied. Morrie has a complete lack of self pity about his situation because he is happy to be surrounded by people who he loves and who love him - he is fulfilled. I promised I would come back and visit him.

Quotes: 

"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." (Pg 12)

Response: My 6th grade teacher read parts of this book to my class. I remembered this sentence all this time - it was odd to see it in the book, in print, when my memory is of her reading it. The quote seems to say so much more now.

"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.....Instead, I buried myself in accomplishments, because with accomplishments, I believed I could control things..." (Pgs. 15 - 17)

Response: Life is too short. This part seems like it could have been a cliche, but the way he phrased it made it seem more original.

"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." (Pg. 34)

Response: I think he kind of captures this idea of people being really motivated to have a happy life when they're younger, but then they get older and have jobs and look back and think how naive they were before. Which is awful, because that makes it seem like only young people should have dreams. This is what I don't like - the idea that once you get old and have kids, your real life is over.

Thoughts and experiences in relation to this book's portrayal (in the first 1/3rd) of how people go about being sick and dying:

Somewhere towards the beginning of the book, Mitch is visiting Morrie, and he notices that there is a stack of newspapers next to Morrie's chair. Mitch questions him about them, asking if Morrie still reads the news everyday. Morrie says: "I do. It seems odd doesn't it? It's not like I'll be around to see how it all turns out." 

This made me think about that a lot - I couldn't imagine waking up and reading the paper and drinking coffee like normal if I knew I was going to die. Maybe I thought that because most of the time, unless someone dies in some public way, people are alone, and isolated when they are dying. In stories, when someone is dying, the focus is on them dying - there isn't usually any mention of what's going on in the outside world.

Later in the book Morrie is being interviewed, and he says he is no longer keeping up with the news, because he is tuning out the world around him. Maybe people just want to be alone when they're dying, so they can focus on the time they have left.