“Maybe it was a grandparent, or a teacher, or a colleague. Someone older, patient and wise, who understood you when you were young and searching, helped you see the world as a more profound place, gave you sound advice to help you make your way through it.”
There often comes a time in our lives when we lose our way and feel lost and helpless in the rat race that we once called life. It is during these trying times that we look for that one person who made a difference in our life. That great teacher and guiding light who we know can show us the way out of our misery and answer all our questions.
For Mitch Albom, that person was Morrie Schwartz, his college professor from nearly twenty years ago.
Many years had passed since the late spring of 1979 when Mitch graduated from Brandeis and promised his favorite professor that he would surely keep in touch. Now sixteen years later he was a successful sports journalist with the Detroit Free Press.
Leading a hectic and fast paced life he has lost contact with all his old acquaintances.
Mitch promises his wife Janine,a singer, that they will eventually have children, but he spends all of his time at work and away on reporting assignments. One night, Mitch is flipping the channels on his television and recognizes Morrie's voice. Morrie is being featured on the television program "Nightline" in the first of three interviews with Ted Koppel.
All is not well with Albom's spirit and when he sees his mentor on Nightline, he takes the initiative to reconnect with his long lost friend.
Morrie is diagnosed with ALS, a debilitating and fatal disease that leaves his “soul, perfectly awake, imprisoned inside a limp husk”of a body. Albom was one of hundreds of former students and acquaintances who traveled great distances to visit Morrie in the final months of his life.
Shortly after his reunion with Morrie, Mitch works himself nearly to death reporting on the Wimbledon tennis tournament in London. There, he spends much time thinking about Morrie and forfeits reading the tabloids, as he now seeks more meaning in his life and knows that he will not gain this meaning from reading about celebrities and gossip.
After returning to his home in Detroit, Mitch learns that the article he has worked so hard to write will not even be published, as the union he belongs to is striking against the newspaper he works for. Once more, Mitch travels to Boston to visit Morrie.
Rediscovering Morrie in the last months of the his life. Mitch visited him in his study every Tuesday, just as they used to back in college. Their rekindled relationship turned into one final "class": lessons in how to live.
In these visits, Mitch learns a lot about life and what is really important from Morrie. In life we have to find out what is important to us, and not let society make those choices for us.
Morrie advises Mitch to reject the popular culture in favor of creating his own. The individualistic culture Morrie encourages Mitch to create for himself is a culture founded on love, acceptance, and human goodness, a culture that upholds a set of ethical values unlike the mores that popular culture endorses. Popular culture, Morrie says, is founded on greed, selfishness, and superficiality, which he urges Mitch to overcome. Morrie also stresses that he and Mitch must accept death and aging, as both are inevitable.
Mitch tape records his discussions with Morrie so that he may compile notes with which to write a book, Tuesdays With Morrie, a project which he and Morrie refer to as their "last thesis together." Morrie continually tells Mitch that he wants to share his stories with the world, and the book will allow him to do just that.
At Morrie's funeral, Mitch recalls his promise to continue his conversations with his professor and conducts a silent dialogue with Morrie in his head. Mitch had expected such a dialogue to feel awkward, however this communication feels far more natural than he had ever expected. He looks down at his watch, and realized that it is Tuesday.
In the end after fourteen Tuesdays, Morrie Schwartz took his last breath.
The author in this book shows how over a couple months what an impact one person can have on another mans life. Mitch started this story being caught up in success and not really caring for anything else. But as the story progresses, Mitch realizes that he has been letting society decide what is important to him. Morrie taught Mitch the meaning of life, and how even on a deathbed, a man can still see everything for the good that is in it.
A true story that narrates the meaning of life the book enlightens and captures the reader’s mind.
It is definitely a must read for all book lovers…..
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