Tuesdays with Morrie, and Other 'Last Days' Stories
March 21, 2024 |
| My thrifted copy of Mitch Albom's Tuesdays with Morrie - March 2024 |
Good evening beautiful people,
Hope you had a lovely Thursday.
Mine was ok, but ended on a sad-ish note; I have been reading Mitch Albom's Tuesdays with Morrie...and Morrie died...and the book ended...and now I am thinking about 'those last days'.
Before we get lost in death and grief, I would like to share a little bit about the book.
I got my copy at a thrift store in Lititz a couple of weeks ago when I was there for the annual Fire & Ice Festival. In my post about the festival, I mentioned that I got the book because I had seen Tuesdays with Morrie - the play on Fulton Theatre's 'coming attractions' list (catch up with my love for the theatre here).
My plan was to read it before the play opens on Friday 29th March...below are my take-aways.
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| Mitch Albom, author Tuesdays with Morrie, and his professor, Morrie, during one of their Tuesday hangouts (Image Source) |
Professor and student reconnect after 16 years and for the last 14 weeks of Morrie's life on earth, Albom flies from his home in Detroit to Morrie's home in Massachusetts for their weekly Tuesday sessions (about 2 hour flight one way).
Each week, they cover a life topic, and their discussions range from marriage and family, to money, forgiveness, aging and death. Albom, with Morrie's permission, records their sessions, and eventually publishes this book - which has been adapted for film and stage plays. I look forward to seeing Fulton Theatre's portrayal of these conversations. This will also be the first time I will be seeing a play after reading the story. Normally I catch the play first then figure out the backstory later (Re: It Happened in Key West and 9-to-5 ft Dolly Parton).
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| Hanging out with Nelly, Norma Jean's companion - Seattle, Summer 2020 |
1) Summer in Seattle
In 2020, when the world started shutting down thanks to the pandemic, we moved to remote learning. Prior to this, I was in a bad place, so the shutdown and subsequent isolation exacerbated things for me...and I desperately needed to EXHALE!!! Since I could not go back home (international travel was not an option), I accepted an invitation to visit Seattle.
Unfortunately things did not go as planned when I got there, and I had to get alternative living arrangements. I ended up in Kirkland, Seattle where I met Norma Jean, and her amazing family (we need a whole blog post about her and her family, how we met and how I ended up enjoying my time in Seattle thanks to their generosity and hospitality).
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| Spent a lot of time at the Marina Park, enjoying the water and reading - Seattle, Summer 2020 |
Norma had stage 4 cancer and was bed ridden.
Like Morrie, she knew the end was just around the corner and opted to stay at home with her family instead of hospice. Though she had lost control of almost every part of her body, she still had a firm grasp on her sense of humor - and had a loud voice to back it up. One of my fondest memories of my time in Seattle is hanging out with her in the afternoons after getting back to the house from one of my mid-morning reading by a water body routines - was always at Juanita Beach or Marina Park.
Norma loved Family Feud, scratch that, Norma loved Steve Harvey (the host). She talked about him like they really had a thing going on...she talked about him so much, I started hanging out with her and Steve in the afternoons. And before long, I lived in a world where the highlight of my days was spending the afternoon with Norma, shouting out answers to Steve's questions, then laughing at his reactions to the contestants' answers...we laughed and shouted at the TV like our lives depended on it.
In different ways, our lives depended on it.
It depended on the laughter and those days we spent together.
...it is from those laughs and moments that I got strength to come back to Lancaster (s/o to RR for the return trip),
...it is from those days that by faith, I left my old school, and restarted my academic journey (again) in a new school (without the assurance of a full scholarship - something I had in my old school).
Unknowingly, Norma used her last weeks to help me reframe a couple of things...she died in August 2020, just a couple of weeks after we met. Meeting her, laughing with her, and spending time with her contributed to the healing my Summer in Seattle brought. I hope to go back this Summer for APA Convention 2024 (read my APA 2023 Highlights)...will definitely visit Kirkland and her fam.
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| My copy of The Last Lecture - January 2022 |
If you have read my book reviews, you know I do not need much convincing to buy books.
When I started reading A Tale of Two Cities at the beginning of 2022, I was blown away by the opening paragraph. I loved it so much, I ventured into the interwebs to see if there were others like me, people who wanted nothing more in life than to live in that opening paragraph. I am happy to report that 1) I still live there because I never got round to finishing the book, reason being 2) I somehow got into a thread where people were sharing 'book openings that have blown them away'.
On the thread, someone mentioned the opening line of Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture - 'I have an engineering problem'. I was beyond blown away. To this day, I cannot tell you what part of that line touched my spirit but whatever it was made me forget about Charles Dickens and his cities. I started hunting down Randy Pausch's book and got it at Read Rose Bookstore, a 'used and rare books' store here in Lancaster. (Read about the store's interesting history here).
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| Immediately I got my copy, I went next door to Prince Street Cafe to start reading it (spot Fulton Theatre across the street) - January 2022 |
Like Tuesday's with Morrie, The Last Lecture is another 'dying professor' story. In summary, Randy Pausch, the author, was diagnosed with cancer, and was later invited to do The Last Lecture, a TED like speaking gig hosted by the school he taught at (you can watch his 'last lecture' on YouTube).
Through the book, he takes us through his childhood, marriage, teaching and the things he puts in place to ensure his wife and kids are comfortable and surrounded by love and community when he dies. He also talks about being asked to do a Last Lecture talk in the midst of all his last days preparation, and how he put his talk together.
Unlike Tuesdays with Morrie, The Last Lecture is a memoir that focuses on living/fulfilling your childhood dreams.
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| I went in for one book, I left with three...we have already established I have a book buying problem - January 2022 |
As I conclude this post, and my walk down memory lane, I can not help but wonder about my own last lecture (s).
The more I think about it, the more I realise that I do not have to wait for my 'last days on earth' when we practically have last days everyday. We are constantly leaving one career path for another, one country for another, one level of education for another. Unfortunately, we only work hard and look forward to the birth, the arrival of new things, but do not give the same energy to the endings, the ceasing of things...and more so the mundane everyday things.
As I continue to work on living well, I want to learn how to leave well...not just at the end of life but every single day. To get started, I would like to aim for something as simple as showing up where I ought to show up, and being present when I am there, just like Morrie, Norma and Randy did...the 'magic' is in the simple things.
Until the next post, I am off to watch some Family Feud reruns.
Sending love and light,
Sitawa
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