Saralee Says
There are some books on the required reading list for Nashville area schools that makes those of us who provide the books wonder why they were selected and if they have any redeeming values at all. Tuesdays with Morrie should be on everyone's required reading including all teachers, mentors and everyone else. It is a real treasure and one of those few books that will stay with you for the rest of your life if you let it.
When author Mitch Albom was a student at Brandeis University he had a favorite professor, Morrie Schwartz. Professor Schwartz was such a powerful influence on Albom that he made a promise he would stay in touch with Professor Schwartz the rest of his life. Like so many people who make promises to stay in touch with the best of intentions, Albom failed to stay in touch. Then one night he turned on his television and saw Schwartz being interviewed by Ted Koppel on the Nightline. Albom was horrified to learn that Schwartz was dying from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig's disease.
Albom has his own problems and distractions with his life and work as a columnist but, when he finds himself with unscheduled time on his hands, he reaches out to his former mentor. Their relationship makes for a wonderful and inspirational story about seizing every moment out of everyday and helping a friend learn to die.
My questions for our club are many. Have you had a mentor, friend, or special teacher that made such an impact on your life that you promised to stay in touch with her or him forever? My best teacher was Clara Duncan Cox who taught me Latin, English and American Literature at Oneida High School in Oneida, Tenn. I have kept up with her and sent her announcements of major events in my life but I am not sure that she understands what an influence she was as a teacher and that her devotion to books has helped me justify my addiction to reading everything that I can.
Who benefited the most in this story, Mitch Albom or Morrie Schwartz, and why? Is this book a story you would recommend to someone or to a family who has a member that is dying? Why or why not? Women have usually been the characters in novels about bonding and sharing life and death with each other. How did you feel reading about such strong emotion between two men? Can insurance companies and health providers do things to ease the minds of those who are dying? If so, what? At what point is it appropriate to talk about spiritual beliefs?
If you have not recognized that special teacher, parent or mentor, what is stopping you?
Larry's Language
This book is all about growing up, no matter what age you are. When Mitch Albom, author of Tuesdays with Morrie, reconnected with his favorite college teacher, Morrie Schwartz, twenty years after graduation from college he discovered that he still had much to learn and Schwartz, who was dying from Lou Gehrig's disease, discovered that he still had a lot of living and teaching to do.
After Albom saw a television show featuring his dying professor, he started to visit him every Tuesday. Their weekly two person dialogue became a classic example of teaching and learning from each other, not about Professor Schwartz's specialty of sociology, but about life, love and emotions.
This book reproduces their personal relationship in an endearing manner as they discuss everything from personal hygiene and whether men should cry to self-pity, regret and the pain of loss.
Schwartz still feels his 70 year old pain about the death of his mother and his brother being stricken by polio when Schwartz was only nine years old. He was saved from that pain by his own self reliance, his borrowing from many different religious and spiritual beliefs and by his stepmother.
Schwartz and Albom discuss the meaning of family, with all its capacity for unity and loneliness and what Albom learns will ultimately lead to his reconciliation with his own brother who is surviving cancer in Europe because the desired course of treatment is banned in the United States.
Even at the point of dying, Schwartz is concerned about his cost of treatment and health insurance and how it affects his family. His fears and concerns are not that much different from the healthy among us. Things are not simple in Schwartz's life or ours for any of these personal or important issues.
Those who find a true teacher or a guide in life are lucky. The talk may be about physics, math, law, medicine or English but the subject matter in these relationships is always about the meaning of our existence.
This entire book and the author's new learning experience only lasts through 14 Tuesdays but it is written in such an engaging fashion and with such tenderness as to captivate your attention and provoke your thoughts.
Join us for our next Book Club discussion, which will feature The Secret Life of Bees: A Novel by Sue Monk Kidd.
