Tuesdays With Morrie

“Tuesdays With Morrie” by Mitch Albom

This is a wonderful story about an inspirational man. If only there were more like him that embraced death as part of life. For starters aspects of my job would be easier, but apart from that we would be a much happier, content and satisfied humanity if we took a leaf out of the book of Morrie Schwartz.



Morrie was diagnosed with the terminal illness, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease) in his 70’s. This began a journey for not just him. He had many passengers that he invited along for the ride.



One passenger was a former student, journalist Mitch Albom, whom he hadn’t seen for sixteen years but remembered vividly nonetheless. Mitch got back in touch with his favourite professor from college when he miraculously saw Morrie featuring on USA’s Nightline talking to Ted Koeppel about his ALS.



What started as just a visit to a dying man turned out to be a thesis, their “last thesis together”. His life was changed as he gained wise insights from Morrie as they met, on Tuesdays.



Morrie’s openness about ALS and its terminal nature is not the norm and this is a shame. As through this openness he didn’t change just Mitch’s life but thousands of people after viewing the Nightline report and follow up stories. Albom’s book was placed on Oprah Winfrey’s Book Club reading list, and automatically became a New York Times bestseller. Through Oprah’s production company the story was made into a telemovie. Morrie leaves a lasting legacy, “a teacher till the last”.



Despite admitting to only being an agnostic from Jewish origin and borrowing from many religions in his dying days, it’s interesting that many of Morrie’s revelations fit in well with having a faith in God. He commented on people living fast paced materialistic lives yet still feeling unfulfilled (Christian response: true fulfilment only comes from having a relationship with God through Jesus Christ).



Maybe Morrie had more faith than he cared to admit. As Albom added in his afterword in the 10-year anniversary edition, Morrie had admitted to Ted Koeppel in their last interview that he had spoken to God. Then came a statement when Mitch asked about life after death. Morrie said, “I have not settled on one yet……however, this is too harmonious, grand and overwhelming a universe to believe that it’s all an accident.” An amazing statement for a man who had, at this stage, lost all movement of his body and had become totally dependant on others.



Able to be read in a day, well worth reading!! You won’t be able to put it down.