Welcome friend. It had been a while since Varun and I read a book together. Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom was a great one to discuss and we are hoping to get back into regularly discussing books again. First published in 1997, this book is almost as old as us and we are excited to bring you our thoughts on this timeless classic.
Tuesdays with Morrie
By Mitch Albom | Goodreads
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, and gave you sound advice to help you make your way through it. For Mitch Albom, that person was Morrie Schwartz, his college professor from nearly twenty years ago.
Maybe, like Mitch, you lost track of this mentor as you made your way, and the insights faded. Wouldn’t you like to see that person again, ask the bigger questions that still haunt you?
Mitch Albom had that second chance. He rediscovered Morrie in the last months of the older man’s life. Knowing he was dying of ALS – or motor neurone disease – Mitch visited Morrie 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.
Tuesdays with Morrie: My thoughts
University education has a possibility of opening us up to the world, it allows us to discover who we are and what we can be. With the confidence and encouragement of the right people, we can create a life and career that will bring us joy. Morrie was one such special teacher for Mitch. Through gentle pushes and thoughtful questions during his formative university years, Morrie helped Mitch realise his potential, discover interests and strengths he didn’t know he had. But as it happens when one chapter of life ends and another begins, we tend to lose connections with those who were dear to us. It is many years later that Mitch takes the steps to reconnect with his old teacher. Morrie is dying of ALS but his instincts as a teacher are still present and with renewed zeal, Mitch and Morrie restart their weekly Tuesday meet ups and talk about life.
Tuesday with Morrie was a very hard book for me. I did not want to write this review because I knew I would have to confront my grief. That’s ok. I will sit with it for a bit and you can skip this part should you wish. My paternal aunt passed away in December. She had lupus which is not the same as ALS but in reading Morrie’s deteriorating condition, I was reminded of her. She had been ill since 2014, around the time I left India. I could not help contrasting Morrie and Abu. She was also a beloved teacher. While Morrie was surrounded by family and friends, she did have a chosen few around her but with me and my dad, both having moved to Canada, weren’t there physically for her last days. I had the chance to create new memories with her when I was in India for my wedding reception and even after death, I find that our connection has only gotten stronger. I come across books like Tuesdays with Morrie and find her in them. I look at photos of us when we were young. I remember her voice. Morrie feared the day when he would need help going to the bathroom, the humiliation of not being able to meet his own bodily needs. I have seen Abu go through that. And yet, they both continued with a smile. They always welcomed whoever showed up. They never let their condition hinder their interactions. They helped those who wanted help.
I believe as we get older, make our way into mid-/late- twenties, the loss of a loved one hits harder. The implications of a lost connection have to be lived. Tuesdays with Morrie is a kind reminder to be with the people we love in whatever capacity we can. To create memories we can look back at. Those are what will give us a hug when the pain is too much.
Death is a teacher and Morrie is a wonderful soul to learn from. Written in 1997, I love how timeless Tuesdays with Morrie is. I found Mitch’s questions no different than mine almost three decades later. I am not as old as him but my curiosity about marriage, children, culture and living. Morrie has an outlook of life that is simple, brilliant and commendable. Morrie takes his condition in stride and thinks of it as an opportunity to relive his childhood days when he was cared for by his parents. He puts aside time to feel self-pity in the morning and then goes on with his day. He teaches Mitch the power of detachment, experiencing his emotions, and knowing his values to function in society as himself.
As Tuesdays with Morrie comes to a close, so does the life of a brilliant professor and his last class.
Tuesdays with Morrie: Q&A with Varun
When did you first hear about this book and what made you pick it up?
Back in 2020, during COVID, I was a part of a virtual book club where folks would get on a call every week (or two) to discuss the books they’d read. That’s how I was introduced to Tuesdays with Morrie. As a listener to Morrie’s story from someone else’s perspective, the book seemed trivial. It felt like it would simply be the author’s notes about his beloved professor. I never paid much heed to the book up until recently, when another a friend recommended that I read it. In his words, “this is the only self help book that would make sense to anyone.”
I was drawn to the idea of reading it because this friend suggested that Morrie’s qualities were akin to a stoic. For me, that was a good enough reason to pick up the book. Needless to say that the book was overwhelming and I strongly felt that had Morrie been alive today, he would add a lot to his lessons on living life in a certain way.
Were there any parts of Tuesdays with Morrie that were hard for you?
Plenty. There’s a chapter in the book titled ‘The Professor’ that takes us back to Morrie’s childhood. Tears welled up in my eyes when I read how he was deprived of love from his father and had a tough time witnessing his brother suffer from Polio. In some ways, Mitch moves the reader by making them feel as if the reader is standing right there, seeing everything happen in real time, instead of experiencing those moments through the pages of a book. The pain felt immensely personal despite me not having gone through anything remotely similar. There are certain stories that make you question the nature of events one has to go through; the chapter on Morrie’s past was my moment of reckoning and comprehending if what Morrie had to deal with makes any sense. Or if it someone being worthy of bigger and better things in life has anything to do with what they get.
Morrie believed in Mitch, to the extent that in his moment of vulnerability, he mentioned to Mitch that if he had a third son, he would wish for Mitch to be that. In a time when expressing feelings may still have been considered a sign of weakness and exposing ourselves too much, it was admirable that both men could tell each other that they love each other. As friends. As a coach and a student.
There were these little pockets of exchanges between Morrie and Mitch where Mitch would want to learn how to take care of Morrie and Morrie would want Mitch to do the same. It’s sweet in a way that both of them knew what the other wanted without speaking a word about the condition Morrie was in. Perhaps the best relationships, romantic or otherwise, are the ones where little has to be said but much is, nevertheless, understood.
We fall into the patterns of getting an education, making a career, many times not really knowing where we want to be. While schooling and university does give us the technical knowledge, I find it lacking in self-development, reflection and life talks. They are just the stepping stones into at least five decades of work. What are your thoughts on this, Varun?
When I was twenty, having the most comfortable lifestyle meant the world to me. I realize now that it’s something that I was never open about but subconsciously wished for. I don’t think others my age would have felt any different. It is this sense of comfort that drives a lot of what you mention here: making and having a career and yet not knowing where we want to end up. I think that academics prepare a professional and not a student. If that weren’t the case, we would be looking at education that gives us the option to stop, think and then move forward.
Now, nearly a decade later, I feel that there’s a good reason why academics were called what they were. They were meant to train us to make us employable. Dealing with life may or not be a part of that. My experiences with bullying and the ignorance of adults towards it make me feel that may be we just aren’t educated enough to not only know how we feel about ourselves but also how we feel about others. Most schools would dismiss life lessons against earning a livelihood. But today, I think I know better.
I’ve learned that a good way to break the pattern is to keep meeting people who are not from the same profession/career as you are. That gives a good idea about life and how different and original everyone’s way of living is. It also gives insights into how we might want to build our life without having anyone to mimic or compare ourselves with.
Was there something you would have liked to discuss with Morrie?
I would definitely ask him more about forgiveness. Mitch mentioned in the book that Morrie believed in forgiving people for being who they want to be, regardless of their actions. I think there are nuances to it. I’d also talk about being oneself the way they are, without being hurtful through their actions.
What did you think of the problems that Morrie describes with society’s approach to money and inability to commit to a person? Do you think they still apply so many years after the book was published?
Yes they do.
How much does one truly ‘need’ is a bottomless pit. The world advocates a minimalistic lifestyle to allow for sharing of resources and less waste and yet, if you observe the little things in your home, you’ll often find things that didn’t have to be in that place. That you could have done without them. When people start to make more money than they’d actually need, their scope of needs expands. Capitalism forces that on us as well. Some of us have goals because we aren’t coming from families which were relatively poor, but we want to go beyond those goals because either we don’t feel confident that we have really gotten better in life financially, or because we become greedy.
I mentioned earlier that back in Morrie’s days, being vulnerable with another person would have been difficult. The situation is no different today. I wish paying compliments to a person, letting them know if we had a good/bad day at work, coming forward and expressing how we feel about them was simpler. Instead we are always afraid of what they might think about us. It is aggravated by social media and the urge to always represent a happy, satisfied life. I don’t think all lives are happy and we all have our ups and downs, but we are just not okay sharing them with anyone. How would we commit to someone if we have such a tough time opening up?
That’s why Morrie seems more relatable. He also articulates his advice beautifully, so much so that it doesn’t feel offensive but achievable, without second thoughts.
A note on this copy of Tuesdays with Morrie: I love borrowing books from the library and this is definitely one of the most loved books I have found. If you observe closely, this copy has tape along the top edge of the cover that got torn at some point. I also saw it noted within the pages the timing of unavoidable wear and tear. I love that care that the librarians at my Strathcona County Library have given to this book. Almost three decades after its release, it is still loved and borrowed by library readers.
Thanks for making it to the end of our discussion! Have you read Tuesdays with Morrie or plan to? Find it on Goodreads.
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