I’m back to a memoir about dying that I had earlier decided not to read after reading the same author’s latter Finding Chika. He explains the origin of this memoir better than I could. Morrie Schwartz, professor of sociology at Brandis University, died of ALS in 1995 at age 78. His last course given with the author as the only pupil, at their 14 weekly meetings as Morrie was dying a slow miserable death, covers “love, work, community, family, aging, forgiveness, and finally death….A funeral was held in lieu of graduation. Although no final exam was given, you were expected to produce a long report on what was learned. That paper is presented here”.
The author is a prolific Detroit-based sports writer, playwright, and musician who heard about his old prof’s terminal illness when it was featured on national television and decided to reconnect after 16 years of pursuing his own career, and flew to Boston every Tuesday for this Morrie’s final course.
The advice given by the wise Morrie is timeless, universally applicable, and loaded with sometimes overly sentimental and nostalgic aphorisms, but coveys wisdom seldom given or followed in the age of selfish mercenary capitalism and consumerism.“Giving makes me feel like I am living.” “Learn how to die and you learn how to live.” It certainly changed the attitudes and lifestyle of the author who became a selfless philanthropist running an orphanage in Haiti and adopting a dying Haitian girl.
As I read this, I began to feel guilty about the many connections with others I have inadvertently or deliberately severed and the selfish interests I have pursued over a life now almost as long as Morrie’s was, but I know he would advise me to forgive myself as well as others.
The book has been adapted as a Netflix movie that I have not yet watched and as a theatrical stage play. In spite of the morbid subject matter, it is interspersed with dry humour and snippets of both the professor’s and the student’s background life stories which provide critical context.
This memoir reminded me of another wonderful, very upbeat philosophical memoir that I read years ago, The Last Lecture, written by Randy Paush as he was dying of pancreatic cancer in 2003. tuesdays with Morrie is a very much more enjoyable read than Finding Chika.
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Thanks, Vera
The Passionate Reader 