by Mitch Albom
“In the beginning of life, when we are infants, we need others to survive, right? And at the end of life, when you get like me, you need others to survive, right?”
His voice dropped to a whisper. “But here’s the secret: in between, we need others as well.”
Later that afternoon, Connie and I went into the bedroom to watch the O. J. Simpson verdict. It was a tense scene as the principals all turned to face the jury, Simpson, in his blue suit, surrounded by his small army of lawyers, the prosecutors who wanted him behind bars just a few feet away. When the foreman read the verdict“Not guilty”—Connie shrieked.
“Oh my God!”
We watched as Simpson hugged his lawyers. We listened as the commentators tried to explain what it all
meant. We saw crowds of blacks celebrating in the streets outside the courthouse, and crowds of whites sitting stunned inside restaurants. The decision was being hailed as momentous, even though murders take place every day. Connie went out in the hall. She had seen enough.
I heard the door to Morrie’s study close. I stared at the TV set. Everyone in the world is watching this thing, I told myself. Then, from the other room, I heard the ruffling of Morrie’s being lifted from his chair and I smiled. As “The Trial of the Century” reached its dramatic conclusion, my old professor was sitting on the toilet.
It is 1979, a basketball game in the Brandeis gym. The team is doing well, and the student section begins a chant, “We’re number one! We’re number one!” Morrie is sitting nearby. He is puzzled by the cheer. At one point, in the midst of “We’re number one!” he rises and yells, “What’s wrong with being number two?”
The students look at him. They stop chanting. He sits down, smiling and triumphant.
The Audiovisual, Part Three
The “Nightline” crew came back for its third and final visit. The whole tenor of the thing was different now. Less like an interview, more like a sad farewell. Ted Koppel had called several times before coming up, and he had asked Morrie, “Do you think you can handle it?”
Morrie wasn’t sure he could. “I’m tired all the time now, Ted. And I’m choking a lot. If I can’t say something, will you say it for me?”
Koppel said sure. And then the normally stoic anchor added this: “If you don’t want to do it, Morrie, it’s okay. I’ll come up and say good-bye anyhow.”
Later, Morrie would grin mischievously and say, “I’m getting to him.” And he was. Koppel now referred to Morrie as “a friend.” My old professor had even coaxed compassion out of the television business.
For the interview, which took place on a Friday afternoon, Morrie wore the same shirt he’d had on the day before. He changed shirts only every other day at this point, and this was not the other day, so why break routine?
Unlike the previous two Koppel-Schwartz sessions, this one was conducted entirely within Morrie’s study, where Morrie had become a prisoner of his chair. Koppel, who kissed my old professor when he first saw him, now had to squeeze in alongside the bookcase in order to be seen in the camera’s lens.
Before they started, Koppel asked about the disease’s progression. “How bad is it, Morrie?”
Morrie weakly lifted a hand, halfway up his belly. This was as far as he could go.
Koppel had his answer.
The camera rolled, the third and final interview. Koppel asked if Morrie was more afraid now that death was near. Morrie said no; to tell the truth, he was less afraid. He said he was letting go of some of the outside world, not having the newspaper read to him as much, not paying as much attention to mail, instead listening more to music and watching the leaves change color through his window.
There were other people who suffered from ALS, Morrie knew, some of them famous, such as Stephen Hawking, the brilliant physicist and author of A Brief History of Time . He lived with a hole in his throat, spoke through a computer synthesizer, typed words by batting his eyes as a sensor picked up the movement.
This was admirable, but it was not the way Morrie wanted to live. He told Koppel he knew when it would be time to say good-bye.
“For me, Ted, living means I can be responsive to the other person. It means I can show my emotions and my feelings. Talk to them. Feel with them …”
He exhaled. “When that is gone, Morrie is gone.”
They talked like friends. As he had in the previous two interviews, Koppel asked about the “old ass wipe test”—hoping, perhaps, for a humorous response. But Morrie was too tired even to grin. He shook his head. “When I sit on the commode, I can no longer sit up straight. I’m listing all the time, so they have to hold me. When I’m done they have to wipe me. That is how far it’s gotten.”
He told Koppel he wanted to die with serenity. He shared his latest aphorism: “Don’t let go too soon, but don’t hang on too long.”
Koppel nodded painfully. Only six months had passed between the first “Nightline” show and this one, but Morrie Schwartz was clearly a collapsed form. He had decayed before a national TV audience, a miniseries of a death. But as his body rotted, his character shone even more brightly.
Toward the end of the interview, the camera zoomed in on Morrie-Koppel was not even in the picture, only his voice was heard from outside it—and the anchor asked if my old professor had anything he wanted to say to the millions of people he had touched. Although he did not mean it this way, I couldn’t help but think of a condemned man being asked for his final words.
“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.”
He took a breath, then added his mantra: “Love each other or die.”
The interview was ended. But for some reason, the cameraman left the film rolling, and a final scene was caught on tape.
“You did a good job,” Koppel said.
Morrie smiled weakly.
“I gave you what I had,” he whispered. “You always do.”
“Ted, this disease is knocking at my spirit. But it will not get my spirit. It’ll get my body. It will not get my spirit.”
Koppel was near tears. “You done good.”
“You think so?” Morrie rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “I’m bargaining with Him up there now. I’m asking Him, ‘Do I get to be one of the angels?’”
It was the first time Morrie admitted talking to God.
The Twelfth Tuesday We Talk About Forgiveness
“Forgive yourself before you die. Then forgive others.”
This was a few days after the “Nightline” interview. The sky was rainy and dark, and Morrie was beneath a blanket. I sat at the far end of his chair, holding his bare feet. They were callused and curled, and his toenails were yellow. I had a small jar of lotion, and I squeezed some into my hands and began to massage his ankles.
It was another of the things I had watched his helpers do for months, and now, in an attempt to hold on to what I could of him, I had volunteered to do it myself. The disease had left Morrie without the ability even to wiggle his toes, yet he could still feel pain, and massages helped relieve it. Also, of course, Morrie liked being held and touched. And at this point, anything I could do to make him happy, I was going to do.
“Mitch,” he said, returning to the subject of forgiveness. “There is no point in keeping vengeance or stubbornness. These things”—he sighed—”these things I so regret in my life. Pride. Vanity. Why do we do the things we do?”
The importance of forgiving was my question. I had seen those movies where the patriarch of the family is on his death bed and he calls for his estranged son so that he can make peace before he goes. I wondered if Morrie had any of that inside him, a sudden need to say “I’m sorry” before he died?
Morrie nodded. “Do you see that sculpture?” He tilted his head toward a bust that sat high on a shelf against the far wall of his office. I had never really noticed it before. Cast in bronze, it was the face of a man in
his early forties, wearing a necktie, a tuft of hair falling across his forehead.
“That’s me,” Morrie said. “A friend of mine sculpted that maybe thirty years ago. His name was Norman. We used to spend so much time together. We went swimming. We took rides to New York. He had me over to his house in Cambridge, and he sculpted that bust of me down in his basement. It took several weeks to do it, but he really wanted to get it right.”
I studied the face. How strange to see a three-dimensional Morrie, so healthy, so young, watching over us as we spoke. Even in bronze, he had a whimsical look, and I thought this friend had sculpted a little spirit as well.
“Well, here’s the sad part of the story,” Morrie said. “Norman and his wife moved away to Chicago. A little while later, my wife, Charlotte, had to have a pretty serious operation. Norman and his wife never got in touch with us. I know they knew about it. Charlotte and I were very hurt because they never called to see how she was. So we dropped the relationship.
“Over the years, I met Norman a few times and he always tried to reconcile, but I didn’t accept it. I wasn’t satisfied with his explanation. I was prideful. I shrugged him off. “
His voice choked.
“Mitch … a few years ago … he died of cancer. I feel so sad. I never got to see him. I never got to forgive. It pains me now so much …”
He was crying again, a soft and quiet cry, and because his head was back, the tears rolled off the side of his face before they reached his lips.
Sorry, I said.
“Don’t be,” he whispered. “Tears are okay.”
I continued rubbing lotion into his lifeless toes. He wept for a few minutes, alone with his memories.
“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.
“I always wished I had done more with my work; I wished I had written more books. I used to beat myself up over it. Now I see that never did any good. Make peace. You need to make peace with yourself and everyone around you.”
I leaned over and dabbed at the tears with a tissue. Morrie flicked his eyes open and closed. His breathing was audible, like a light snore.
“Forgive yourself. Forgive others. Don’t wait, Mitch. Not everyone gets the time I’m getting. Not everyone is as lucky.”
I tossed the tissue into the wastebasket and returned to his feet. Lucky? I pressed my thumb into his hardened flesh and he didn’t even feel it.
“The tension of opposites, Mitch. Remember that? Things pulling in different directions?”
I remember.
“I mourn my dwindling time, but I cherish the chance it gives me to make things right.”
We sat there for a while, quietly, as the rain splattered against the windows. The hibiscus plant behind his head was still holding on, small but firm.
“Mitch,” Morrie whispered.
Uh-huh?
I rolled his toes between my fingers, lost in the task.
“Look at me.”
I glanced up and saw the most intense look in his eyes.
“I don’t know why you came back to me. But I want to say this …
He paused, and his voice choked.
“If I could have had another son, I would have liked it to be you.”
I dropped my eyes, kneading the dying flesh of his feet between my fingers. For a moment, I felt afraid, as if accepting his words would somehow betray my own father. 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.
“I’ve picked a place to be buried.”
Where is that?
“Not far from here. On a hill, beneath a tree, overlooking a pond. Very serene. A good place to think.”
Are you planning on thinking there?
“I’m planning on being dead there.”
He chuckles. I chuckle.
“Will you visit?” Visit?
‘Just come and talk. Make it a Tuesday. You always come on Tuesdays.”
We’re Tuesday people.
“Right. Tuesday people. Come to talk, then?”
He has grown so weak so fast.
“Look at me,” he says.
I’m looking.
“You’ll come to my grave? To tell me your problems?”
My problems?
“Yes.”
And you’ll give me answers?
“I’ll give you what I can. Don’t I always?”
I picture his grave, on the hill, overlooking the pond, some little nine foot piece of earth where they will place him, cover him with dirt, put a stone on top. Maybe in a few weeks? Maybe in a few days? I see mysef sitting there alone, arms across my knees, staring into space.
It won’t be the same, I say, not being able to hear you talk.
“Ah, talk …”
He closes his eyes and smiles.
“Tell you what. After I’m dead, you talk. And I’ll listen.”
The Thirteenth Tuesday We Talk About the Perfect Day
Morrie wanted to be cremated. He had discussed it with Charlotte, and they decided it was the best way. The rabbi from Brandeis, Al Axelrad—a longtime friend whom they chose to conduct the funeral service—had come to visit Morrie, and Morrie told him of his cremation plans.
“And Al?”
“Yes?”
“Make sure they don’t overcook me.”
The rabbi was stunned. But Morrie was able to joke about his body now. The closer he got to the end, the more he saw it as a mere shell, a container of the soul. It was withering to useless skin and bones anyhow, which made it easier to let go.
“We are so afraid of the sight of death,” Morrie told me when I sat down. I adjusted the microphone on his collar, but it kept flopping over. Morrie coughed. He was coughing all the time now.
“I read a book the other day. It said as soon as someone dies in a hospital, they pull the sheets up over their head, and they wheel the body to some chute and push it down. They can’t wait to get it out of their sight. People act as if death is contagious.”
I fumbled with the microphone. Morrie glanced at my hands.
“It’s not contagious, you know. Death is as natural as life. It’s part of the deal we made.”
He coughed again, and I moved back and waited, always braced for something serious. Morrie had been having bad nights lately. Frightening nights. He could sleep only a few hours at a time before violent hacking spells woke him. The nurses would come into the bedroom, pound him on the back, try to bring up the poison. Even if they got him breathing normally again—“normally” meaning with the help of the oxygen machine—the fight left him fatigued the whole next day.
The oxygen tube was up his nose now. I hated the sight of it. To me, it symbolized helplessness. I wanted to pull it out.
“Last night …” Morrie said softly. Yes? Last night?
“… I had a terrible spell. It went on for hours. And I really wasn’t sure I was going to make it. No breath. No end to the choking. At one point, I started to get dizzy
… and then I felt a certain peace, I felt that I was ready to go.”
His eyes widened. “Mitch, it was a most incredible feeling. The sensation of accepting what was happening, being at peace. I was thinking about a dream I had last week, where I was crossing a bridge into something unknown. Being ready to move on to whatever is next.”
But you didn’t.
Morrie waited a moment. He shook his head slightly. “No, I didn’t. But I felt that I could. Do you understand?
“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 dyi
ng, then we can finally do the really hard thing.”
Which is?
“Make peace with living.”
He asked to see the hibiscus plant on the ledge behind him. I cupped it in my hand and held it up near his eyes. He smiled.
“It’s natural to die,” he said again. “The fact that we make such a big hullabaloo over it is all because we don’t see ourselves as part of nature. We think because we’re human we’re something above nature.”
He smiled at the plant.
“We’re not. Everything that gets born, dies.” He looked at me.
“Do you accept that?” Yes.
“All right,” he whispered, “now here’s the payoff. Here is how we are different from these wonderful plants and animals.
“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.”
His voice was raspy, which usually meant he needed to stop for a while. I placed the plant back on the ledge and went to shut off the tape recorder. This is the last sentence Morrie got out before I did:
“Death ends a life, not a relationship.”
There had been a development in the treatment of ALS: an experimental drug that was just gaining passage. It was not a cure, but a delay, a slowing of the decay for perhaps a few months. Morrie had heard about it, but he was too far gone. Besides, the medicine wouldn’t be available for several months.
“Not for me,” Morrie said, dismissing it.
In all the time he was sick, Morrie never held out hope he would be cured. He was realistic to a fault. One time, I asked if someone were to wave a magic wand and make him all better, would he become, in time, the man he had been before?
He shook his head. “No way I could go back. I am a different self now. I’m different in my attitudes. I’m different appreciating my body, which I didn’t do fully before. I’m different in terms of trying to grapple with the big questions, the ultimate questions, the ones that won’t go away.