Tuesdays With Morrie Research Paper

Tuesdays With Morrie: A Biography of the Blind Blessing “ALS is a neurodegenerative disease where the nerve cells in your muscles die. The ‘living wires’ which connect your brain to your muscles degenerate, leading to a loss of mobility, loss of speech and eventually impact the ability to breathe” (ALS Canada: What is ALS). This is the disease that impacts Morrie so greatly throughout the novel but is not necessarily a villain. Morrie Schwartz does not see his disease, ALS, as a villain, rather a blessing in disguise. This is because it brings him and his student back together, it teaches the coach many valuable life lessons, and helps him spread them around the world.
After the graduation, Mitch does not keep in touch with Morrie at all.
However, after Mitch sees Morrie on Nightline, he immediately regains contact with him. Mitch “had not seen him in sixteen years… Now, five minutes later, Morrie was hugging me, his thinning hair rubbing against my cheek. I had told him I was searching for my keys, that's what had taken me so long in the car… “My old friend,” he whispered, “you’ve come back at last.”” (Albom 27-28). Mitch worries about the first encounter, thinking that Morrie will be upset with him, but the coach is not angry at all. He misses his old friend and wants to see him at last, regardless of all the previous years. If Morrie had any grudges before seeing Mitch, he immediately pushes them away. This is because he knows he is going to die so there is no point in wasting the rest of his life angry. Often when people approach the end of their lives, they forget about things like grudges and try to live without regret, similar to June Callwood. In an interview with June Callwood, she says “isn't that a piece of vanity, that I can't think of much” to regret. (George Stroumboulopoulos: June Callwood) Callwood knew at a young age what Morrie learns in dying, that you should try to live without regret. Morrie knows that he does not have the time to be angry with Mitch, so he decides to be grateful for what he has now and tries to learn as much as he can before dying. “Learn how to die, and you learn how to live.” (Albom 83).
When Morrie first learns about the disease, is not depressed, but inspired. Instead of being sad, he becomes “a lightning rod of ideas...He wrote bite-sized philosophies about living with death's shadow: "Accept what you are able to do and what you are not able to do"; "Accept the past as past without denying it or discarding it"; "Learn to forgive yourself and to forgive others"...” (Albom 18). However, since he is dying, he does become sorrowful at some times. When he begins to feel these emotions, he learns to accept it, but not allow it to consume him. ““Don’t cling to things, because everything is impermanent.”... “Detachment doesn't mean you don't let the experience penetrate you… you let it penetrate you fully.”” (Albom 103). Morrie’s disease does not affect his brain at all, so he can still do what he loves, learning and teaching, until his dying breath, as it says in an article by Paul
McHugh.
“Two factors determine how people die: the diseases they have, and who they are. In any given case, these two factors vary in salience. With sudden, terminal disease… the disease dominates, and mostly obliterates, personality… But with slowly advancing disorders who you are powerfully affects how you die… Indeed, from the point of view of society, the behavior of one patient suffering from an incurable disease can differ so radically from that of another suffering from the same disease as to influence our attitudes toward life and death themselves.” (McHugh, Paul R) Since Morrie has a strong positive mindset throughout his last few months, he does not suffer as much as someone who stays at home alone, sad and depressed. Instead, he shares his great wisdom with the world.
Throughout Morrie’s life, he comes up with a great deal of small philosophies about life and death.
Because of the disease, he is able to share them with the world. When Mitch first brings the tape recorder, he thinks that Morrie would not want to be recorded, so he is hesitant to show it to him. But when Mitch starts to put it away, Morrie says that he wants to “remember what we talk about, I told Morrie. I want to have your voice so I can listen to it...later. “When I’m dead.” … “you don't understand. I want to tell you about my life. I want to tell you before I can't anymore.” … “I want someone to hear my story. Will you?” (Albom 63). All Morrie wants is to share his life with the world and because of his disease, he is able to do that. Not only through Mitch and the book but through Ted from Nightline. When Ted begins to interview Morrie, he is very open and honest about his beliefs and feelings. Ted asks what Morrie will dread most about his death, and instead of saying something generic, he says what he really believes, which is that “one day soon, someone's gonna have to wipe my ass.” (Albom 22). As Morrie’s disease progresses, he seems to become more aware of his inner self, as it says in this literary article; “Morrie is diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease: A disease that melts your body from, in Morrie’s case, the legs up. As the disease kills more of Morrie’s body day by day, his wisdom contrarily seems to grow.” (Victor, Emelita. A). Morrie
uses his disease to help him advance his mind and the mind of his peers, which is why ALS is a blessing in disguise in Morrie’s case. Morrie’s disease is a blessing because he decided that it is. Since the disease does not affect his brain, he is able to decide if he is going to let the disease destroy his life before death or not, but instead he decides to live his life to the fullest and enjoy what he has left. Morrie sees his disease as a blessing rather than a villain. This is because it reunites him and Mitch, it teaches him about living and dying, and allows him to spread his wisdom across the world.