Tuesday’s with Morrie: An Old Man, A Young Man, and Life’s Greatest Lesson

“The subject was The Meaning of Life. It was taught from experience. No grades were given, but there were oral exams each week. You were expected to respond to questions, and you were expected to pose questions of your own. You were also required to perform physical tasks now and then, such as lifting the professor’s head to a comfortable spot on the pillow or placing his glasses on the bridge of his nose. Kissing him good-bye earned you extra credit. No books were required, yet many topics were covered, including love, work, community, family, aging, forgiveness, and, finally, death. The last lecture was brief, only a few words. A funeral was held in lieu of graduation.”

The professor, Morrie Schwartz, is dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease. His student, Albom, studied with him at Brandeis and, inspired by a TV news report about the professor’s battle with ALS, wanted to reconnect. Revered as a professor, Morrie’s final act is to offer wisdom and encouragement to those who still need it. With Albom, this takes the shape of an informal, one-on-one seminar on issues Albom has pushed aside but must confront, lest he waste his own life pursuing values that don’t matter. 

“He had always been a dancer, my old professor. The music didn’t matter. Rock and roll, big band, the blues. He loved them all. He would close his eyes and with a blissful smile begin to move to his own sense of rhythm. It wasn’t always pretty. But then, he didn’t worry about a partner. Morrie danced by himself.” 

Morrie has a great love for life and for the things that really matter: affection, laughter, conversation, sunlight, flowers, music, dance. He knows that these things, not money or power, are what make life worth living. 

“Do I wither up and disappear, or do I make the best of my time left? he had asked himself. He would not wither. He would not be ashamed of dying. Instead, he would make death his final project, the center point of his days. Since everyone was going to die, he could be of great value, right? He could be research. A human textbook. Study me in my slow and patient demise. Watch what happens to me. Learn with me. Morrie would walk that final bridge between life and death, and narrate the trip.”

A lifelong student of the mental states of humans, Morrie decides to make an informal study of his death that will be available to others. He invites people for talks and informal seminars, and he even holds his own “living funeral” so friends and family can say goodbye. These final efforts appear on the TV news show Nightline and Albom records them for posterity in his book.