Learning from ‘Tuesdays with Morrie’

Life is a series of pulls back and forth. You want to do one thing, but you are bound to do something else. Something hurts you yet you know it shouldn’t. You take certain things for granted, even when you know you should never take anything for granted."

The tension of opposites – that is how Morrie Schwartz described it. Whatever. I did not want to read the book. Another new-age crap about life. Another book trying to sell on emotional appeal about a dying professor’s last moments with his favorite college student. The book Tuesdays with Morrie was to me just one of those self-help books you find in abundance in bookstores nowadays. Its first part is entitled "The Curriculum." Sissy topics such as love, work, community, family, aging, forgiveness and death. My practical nature got the better of me. I could use some reading material whenever I go to the toilet. I was amused at the idea – death and the toilet bowl.

The book is written by Mitch Albom. Morrie Schwartz, Morrie or Coach to Mitch, was his favorite college professor. After graduation, Mitch lost touch with Morrie, forgot his dream of becoming a pianist and became a columnist instead. He concerned himself only with his own world until fate designed that the student and his teacher’s paths would meet once more. Only this time Morrie was not the healthy college professor who once silenced students chanting, "We’re number one" when he rose and yelled. "What’s wrong with being number two?" Morrie was sick with ALS and he was about to face death.

Morrie had long talks with Mitch every Tuesday about the meaning of life and his own mortality. Every Tuesday, they had a different topic to talk about. Mitch recorded these sessions, wanting to hold on and keep a part of his old professor’s memory. On the first Tuesday, they talked about the world. I could not understand why Morrie was still concerned about the cares of the world, after all, he was dying. Saint or fool? The second Tuesday, they talked about feeling sorry for yourself. This time, the old fool was beginning to get to me. Mitch, I don’t allow any more self-pity than that. A little each morning, and that’s all. I was feeling sorry for all the hardships I had to go through so I could graduate from college. I was sorry about growing up without my father beside me. I was sorry for many things and unlike Morrie, it was more than a little each morning.

The third Tuesday, they talked about regrets. We’re involved in trillions of little acts to keep going. So we don’t get into the habit of standing back and looking at our lives and saying, Is this all? Is something missing. Regrets. I regret hurting my best friend. I regret losing her. What happened to us? It was the best friendship I’ve ever had. I regret talking about many things with her but not really communicating. The fourth Tuesday, they talked about death. The idea was harder to discern. Youth holds me back from probing further. Once you learn how to die, you learn how to live. The fifth Tuesday, they talked about family. Your spiritual security – knowing that your family will be watching out for you. Nothing else will give you that. Not money, not fame. I thought about Tatay and Mama (my grandparents), how they tried hard to fill the void and provided me a home. My grandparents raised me and provided for my needs with their hard-earned money. I thought about mother who once battled with her own insecurities and later turned out to be the best mother in the whole world.

The sixth Tuesday, they talked about emotions. By throwing yourself into these emotions, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is. What love is. What grief is. And only then can you say, "All right, I have experienced that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment." Fear. I perfected the art of hiding my emotions because of fear. In the dark, these emotions haunt me like mad. Soon, I hope I learn how to say no and detach from all this. The seventh Tuesday, they talked about the fear of aging. Aging is not just decay, it’s growth. I look around and realize how youth is such a hype. The eighth Tuesday, they talked about money. People were so hungry for love, that they were accepting substitutes. Money – my first on the list whenever I look for a job. I know there is something wrong with that. But what about my family back home who needs my help?

The ninth Tuesday, they talked about how love goes on. A shy and loving man comes to mind. How are we going to last with the distance between us? Then Morrie has just the answer, love is how you stay alive. On the tenth, they talked about marriage. I never really believed in marriage. My friends and I used to imagine a marriage contract renewable every number of years. We never got to agree how long the contract should be, but certainly not a lifetime. If you don’t have a common set of values in life, you’re gonna have trouble. Amen. The eleventh Tuesday, they talked about culture. The little things I can obey, but the big things – how we think, what we value – those you must choose yourself. I often think we are unappreciative of people with a different thought pattern from ours. We avoid these people. We want to hear our own thoughts, our own ideas. Relationships are severed when we find that our loved ones do not mirror ourselves.

The twelfth Tuesday they talked about forgiveness. Make peace. I thought about Father. How helpless he looked knowing he could ask no more than "Kumusta?" No scolding, not even an advice or two. He was like a stranger striking up a conversation about the weather. He holds back. We also need to forgive ourselves. On the thirteenth, they talked about the perfect day. Mine would be spent on the beach, floating for hours in the blue sea. But Morrie’s idea of a simple day was simple. So average. How could he find perfection in such an average day? Then I realized this was the whole point. The fourteenth Tuesday, they said goodbye. This is where I suck. I hate goodbyes. I was becoming Mitch. I did not want to hear my professor say goodbye. I was just beginning to rediscover the world, me. But he went anyway. Left me with just a few words, death ends a life not a relationship. The book ends with graduation – Morrie’s death.

All the touchy-feely stuff in this book made me uncomfortable. But I felt like Morrie’s invisible student. I was there – sitting beside Mitch and like a greedy child, taking every ounce of wisdom I could get from this dying old man. I was the person Morrie was telling It’s all right to cry. One day, I’d get through you Lucille. I could choose to shrug off all those lessons Morrie taught. It was all about the same thing and this is not first book I’ve read that talks about life, love and death. But as it has became clear to Mitch, it also became clear to me – through his courage, his humor, his patience and his openness – that Morrie was looking at life from some very different place than anyone else I knew. A healthier place. A more sensible place. And he was about to die.

There is one thing I hate about this book: I had to go to the bathroom to read it, away from the critical eyes of my roommates – I cried without shame.