“ Teachers takes a hand, opens a mind and touches a heart. ” The book ‘ Tuesdays with Morris” touches the heart Of many people. He wasn’t a superstar athlete, a successful entrepreneur or a famous actor. He was not a household name. His only claim to fame was an appearance on Nightline. But ask anyone Who knew him and they’ll likely tell you that Morris Schwartz made more of an impression on them then Michael Jordan, Bill Gates and Jodie Foster combined. Tuesdays with Morris” is more than just a dying man’s last words. It is an inspirational recount of a man’s life a man whose passion for the human spirit has anointed to live long after his last breath. You could say there are two stories within ‘ Tuesdays with Morris”. One is the story of a man and a disease. The other is the story of a professor of social psychology who has come to understand that elite’s complexities can be broken down into simple truths.
This book was not planned; it came about after Mitch Album, by chance, saw his old professor on Abs’s Nightline being interviewed by Ted Gospel about what it was like to be dying of AL S, more commonly known as Lou Shirts disease, Mitch had lost track of his Brandeis University professor and college mentor shortly after e graduated and settled in Detroit as a sports writer. Album surprised and saddened to learn that Morris was dying and quickly got in touch with his old professor _ What started as a reunion of old friends turned into the project of a lifetime.
Mitch and Morris subsequently spent the next sixteen Tuesdays together exploring many of life’s fundamental issues family, marriage, aging and culture to name a few. Morris avgas giving his last lecture while Mitch was writing his final thesis. Take aging an issue many struggle with. As his disease progresses, Morris finds himself dealing with aging in a more concentrated way Han most. When Mitch asks him how he is able to refrain from being jealous Of the young, Morris says, “ It’s like going back to being a child again. Someone to bathe you. Someone to lift you.
Someone to Wipe you. We all know how to be a child. It’s inside all of us. For me TTS just remembering how to enjoy it. ” With wonderful insight, Morris continues, ‘ We all yearn in some way to return to those days when we were completely taken care of unconditional love, unconditional caring. Most of us didn’t get enough. ” Now if that isn’t getting the most of an unfortunate situation, I don’t know what is! But aging for most isn’t about a rapidly degenerative disease like ALLS Most of us face aging on our 30th, 40th and 50th birthdays when we yearn for the carefree days of youth.
Morris has something to say about those who want to be young again. He says that’s a reflection to a elite that hasn’t found meaning. He says it you’ve found meaning you don’t want to go back, and you can appreciate the 23 year old in PU, the 35 year old and the 62 year old. Some of Morris’s greatest insights are his views on how our culture plays into our lives, He spent his life creating his own culture, listening to his heart and doing what was right for IM, versus what avgas right by society’s standards. One problem he sees is that eve tend to see each other as dissimilar rather than alike.
We are taught to be independent and unique, but in reality we all have the same needs. He emphasizes investment in people, not things. When all is said and done, we will be remembered not by our bank accounts or stock portfolios, but by the time we spent listening to a friend or helping a family member. Morris has a way of tapping into life’s biggest questions With such clarity and understanding you almost think he was sent by a higher power to help guide lost souls. Morris peaks to every person because he is every person. He has led a simple yet meaningful life that inspires you to live yours to the fullest.
Perhaps his story is more powerful because you’re not only taking in his wisdom, but you are experiencing his death. In his words, he is fortunate enough to know he is dying, to take stock of his life as it comes to an end. He handles this with bravery and compassion, and when the final moment comes you feel as though you’ve lost a dear friend. Album’s elite has changed dramatically. He spends more time with his wife, takes more time off favor and has restructured his work regime. He flies overseas to visit his family more often.
In short, he is investing in the people in his life that he cares about most. He says he faces life with less fear than he did before, knowing that life only comes around once and somehow things will work out, It is clear he is a more settled person and possesses a true sense of meaning. Clearly, Morris’s class is a success. The book starts of with Mitch Album, the book’s narrator, recalling his graduation from Brandeis university in the spring of 1379. After he has received his diploma, Mitch approaches his favorite professor, Morris Schwartz, and resents him with a monogrammed briefcase.
While at Brandeis, Mitch takes almost all Of the sociology courses Morris had teaches. He promises Morris, who is crying, that he will keep in touch, though he does not fulfill his promise. Years after Match’s graduation from Brandeis, Morris is forced to forfeit dancing, his favorite hobby, because he has been diagnosed with ALLS. A debilitating disease that leaves his “ soul, perfectly awake, imprisoned inside a limp husk” of a body. Morris’s wife, Charlotte, cares for Morris, though at his insistence, keeps her job as a professor at M. I. T.
Sixteen years after his graduation from Brandeis, Mitch is feeling frustrated with the life he has chosen to live. After his uncle dies of pancreatic cancer, Mitch abandons his failing career as musician to become a well-paid journalist for a Detroit newspaper, Mitch promises his Witt Jeanine that they will have children eventually, though he spends all to his time at work, away on reporting assignments, One night, Mitch is flipping the channels on his television and recognizes Morris’s voice. Morris is being featured on the television program in the first of three interviews with Ted Gospel, whom he quickly befriends.
Before consenting to be interВ» dewed, Morris surprises and softens the famed newscaster when he asks Gospel what is “ close to his heart” Mitch is stunned to see his former professor on television. Following Morris’s television appearance, Mitch contacts his beloved professor and travels from his home in Detroit to Morris’s home in West Newton, Massachusetts to visit with hire When Mitch drives up to Morris’s house, he delays greeting his professor because he is speaking on the phone with his producer, a decision he later regrets.
Shortly after his reunion faith Morris, Mitch works himself nearly o death reporting on the Windblown tennis tournament in London. There, he spends much time thinking about Morris and forfeits reading the tabloids, as he now seeks more meaning in his life and knob, s that he will not gain this meaning from reading about celebrities and gossip. He is knocked over by a swarm Of reporters chasing celebrities Andre Gases and Brooke Shields, and it is then that Mitch realizes he is chasing after the wrong thing.
When he returns 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 e works for. Once more, Mitch travels to Boston to visit Morris, Following their first Tuesday together, Mitch returns regularly every Tuesday to listen to Morris’s lessons on “ The Meaning of Life. ” Each week, Mitch brings Morris food to eat, though as Morris’s condition worsens he is no longer able to enjoy solid food.
In his first of three interviews with Gospel for “ Nightline,” Morris admits that the thing he dreads most about his worsening condition is that someday; he will not be able to wipe himself after using the bathroom, Eventually, this fear comes true. Interspersed throughout Match’s visits to Morris are flashbacks to their days together at Brandeis. Mitch describes himself as a student who had acted tough, but had sought the tenderness he recognized in Morris. At Brandeis, Mitch and Morris shared a relationship more like that between father and son than teacher and student.
Soon before Morris’s death, when his condition has deteriorated so much that he can no longer breathe or move on his own, he confides that if he could have another son, he would choose Mitch. In his childhood, Morris had been very poor. His father, Charlie had been cold ND dispassionate, and had neglected to provide for Morris and his younger brother emotionally and financially. At the age of eight, Morris must read the telegram that brings news Of his mother’s death, as he is the only one in his family who can read English. Charlie marries Eva. Kind woman who gives Morris and his brother the love and affection they need. Eva also instills in Morris his love of books and his desire for education. However, Charlie insists that Morris keep his mother’s death a secret, as he wants Morris’s younger brother to believe that Eva is his biological mother. This demand to keep his mother’s death a secret proves a terrible emotional burden for young Morris; he keeps the telegram all of his life as proof that his mother had existed, Beck. Cause he was starved to love and affection during his childhood, Morris seeks it out in his old age from his family and friends.
Now that he is nearing his death, Morris says that he has reverted too figurative infancy, and tries in earnest “ enjoy being a baby again. ” He and Mitch often hold hands throughout their sessions together. In his lessons, Morris advises Mitch to reject the popular culture in favor of reading his own, The individualistic culture Morris 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, Morris says, is founded on greed, selfishness, and superficiality, which he urges Mitch to overcome. Morris also stresses that he and Mitch must accept death and aging, as both are inevitable. On one Tuesday, Jeanine travels with Mitch to visit Morris. Jeanine is a professional singer, and Morris asks her to sing for him. Though she does not usually sing upon request, Jeanine concedes, and her voice moves Morris to tears. Morris cries freely and often, and continually encourages Mitch to do so also.
As Morris’s condition deteriorates, so does that Of the pink hibiscus plant that sits on the Window ledge in his study. Mitch becomes increasingly aware of the evil in media, as it drenches the country With stories Of murder and hatred. One such Story is the murder trial of CO. Simpson, the verdict of which causes major racial division between whites and blacks. Mitch tape-records his discussions with Morris so hat he may compile notes with which to write a book, Tuesdays With Morris, a project, which he and Morris refer to as their “ last thesis together. Morris continually tells Mitch that he wants to share his stories with the world, a the book will allow him to do just that. Meanwhile, at Morris’s insistence, Mitch attempts to restore his relationship with his brother Peter who lives in Spain, For many years, Peter has refused his family’s help in battling pancreatic cancer and insists on seeking treatment alone, Mitch calls Peter and leaves numerous phone assuages, though the only reply he receives trot his brother is a curt message in which Peter insists he is fine, and reminds Mitch that he does not want to talk about his illness.
