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“So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they're busy doing things they think are important. This is because they're chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.” - Chapter 7, page 43

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"Once you learn how to die, you learn how to live"-Chapter 13, Page 82

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Tuesdays With Morrie Timeline | Preceden

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Mitch's first class with Morrie. Mitch's graduation. Mitch didn't keep in contact. Morrie learns he has ALS. Morrie teaches his last college course. Morrie i...

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Tuesdays with Morrie is about Mitch Albom and his old college professor who has ASL. Mitch said he would always remain in contact with him.  Unfortunately life got in the way of this until Mitch saw Morrie on tv. After he found out that Morrie has ASL, he rushes over to Boston to visit Morrie. Mitch and Morrie decided to see each other every Tuesday. Morrie teaches Mitch life lessons every Tuesday. These meetings include lessons about death, love, culture, marriage, regret and the world we live in, among many others. This is until Morrie passes away.

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Mitch reflecting back on his time with Morrie. 

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Mitch reflecting back on his time with Morrie. 

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With Mitch being a journalist, he wrote a segment about Morrie and their time together. (click the link below to read about it)

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Twenty-two years ago, I flipped on the TV and my life changed forever. An old professor of mine, Morrie Schwartz, was on the "Nightline" program, talking to Ted Koppel.

About dying.

My mouth dropped. Morrie was more than a former teacher. He was closer to a favorite old uncle, a smiling, gentle mentor at Brandeis University in Massachusetts who saw in me a flawed but salvageable young man.

We'd been extremely close. I took every class he offered. I ate lunch with him. I visited his home. He spoke to me about life, values, love, community. He listened patiently to my silly collegiate complaints; I majored in sociology, his field, mostly so I could study with him all four years.

Read more:

On graduation day, he gave me a hug. "Mitch," he said, "you're one of the good ones. Promise me you'll stay in touch."

I said I would.

And then I broke that promise. Every day, week, month and year - for 16 years. Not a letter. Not a phone call. Why? Ambition. Self-absorption. A belief that work - like this column at this newspaper - always came first, and everything else could wait.

What I ignored was the essence of that famous Emily Dickinson poem, "Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me."

Death stopped for Morrie.

And it threw something in my direction.

Still learning

Morrie and I reconnected before he died. We met regularly. And two decades later, I am still telling the story. I've seen it turned into a TV film made by Oprah Winfrey as well as an off-Broadway play produced more than 100 times globally. On Tuesday, the 20th anniversary edition of "Tuesdays With Morrie" will be released, a tiny book I wrote about our experience that grew beyond anyone's imagination. I've added a new and final chapter because I am still, decades later, trying to process what transpired.

What transpired, in simple order, was this: I saw the "Nightline" program. I made a guilty phone call. I made a visit to Morrie's home. Then another visit. Another visit. Then visits on every Tuesday that Morrie had left in his life. Like cold hands to fire, I was drawn to Morrie, seeking his warmth, and with each plane trip from Detroit to Boston, I felt the crust of who I'd become peeling off in favor of who I'd once been: a student, anxious to hear an old teacher's wisdom.

And boy, did Morrie have wisdom.

Lessons so far

Even as his disease, ALS, chewed on his nervous system, leaving him a stiff, motionless husk needing to be carried from place to place, needing to be washed, fed, even wiped on his behind, he taught. He shared his experience. He had visitors turn his head so he could see them, and he spoke, and they listened, and he discovered a purpose to his awful affliction:

A final class on the Meaning Of Life.

I was his student. Week after week, I brought up a topic, and Morrie gave his views - not based on readings or footnotes, but on life experience. It proved to be the best form of research.
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Because he lost his mother as a child, and never really got over it, Morrie cherished his own children and taught me, "There is no secure ground upon which people may stand if it isn't the family."

Because he watched his graduates chase after advertised values, only to return to him miserable and unsatisfied, Morrie taught me, "Don't buy the culture if you don't like it."

Because he lost touch with a friend over a silly argument, then wept when he learned the man had died, Morrie taught me, "Forgive everyone everything. Now."

And because he saw the struggles of so many, then suffered a catastrophic struggle of his own, Morrie recognized life was a "tension of opposites" with forces pulling you in conflicting directions.

"Which side wins?" I once asked him.

"Love wins," he said. "Love always wins."

Force of change

At one point in our visits, I asked Morrie what he feared the most with his dying. His answer surprised me. "The debt I'm going to leave my family," he said. He explained that the cost of dying slowly, at home, had sapped his savings, and that his wife and sons would be burdened with payments after he was gone.

That was the impetus for me writing "Tuesdays With Morrie." Simply to pay his bills. The book idea was not well-received. Many publishers shook their heads; it was boring, they said, it was depressing. I was a sports writer. Who'd want to read it? In truth, if it hadn't been for Morrie's need, I would have given up.

Instead, I kept knocking on doors until we found a publisher, Doubleday, that wanted to take the book. When I told Morrie he didn't have to worry anymore about burdening his family with debt, he cried (something he did fairly often). And I felt something funny inside me, something Morrie knew very well: the joy of helping another person.

I often say, for me, that was the end of Tuesdays With Morrie, because I had finally done one nice thing for a man who had done countless nice things for me. Perhaps, as thick-headed as I'd been, some of Morrie's teachings were finally seeping in.

But if I was done with the idea, it was only getting started with me. The book that began, in 1997, with a meager 20,000-copy print run, has swelled to an unimaginable reach - nearly 50 countries and more than 40 languages. And like any good teacher who forces you to look at life differently, the book changed me.

I went from being a 100-hour-a-week sports journalist to someone asked to speak at funerals, at hospice groups, at universities, at the bedside of dying patients. Instead of people stopping me at airports yelling, "Who's going to win the Super Bowl?" I'd get stopped by questions like, "My mother just died from cancer, and the last thing we did was read 'Tuesdays With Morrie' together. Can I talk to you?"

Such encounters change you. They should change you. They make you realize how fleeting life can be, how precious our human connections really are, how vacuous so much of what we pursue and obsess over really is.

In that way, I guess, I am Morrie's eternal graduate student, destined to retake his last class every year.

But it did not stop there.

What matters, what is true

Morrie's favorite little allegory was about two waves, flopping around, having a great time, until one of them spots the coastline.

"This is terrible," the first wave says.

"What is?" says the second.

"We're going to hit the shore. You don't understand. All of us waves are going to be nothing."

"No, you don't understand. You're not a wave, you're part of the ocean."

When Morrie's life ended, when his wave hit the shore, he did indeed filter back into the human ocean. And his teachings have affected millions. His words are being taught in classrooms as far away as the Philippines and as near as a high school in Grand Blanc, where I recently Skyped with a class studying "Tuesdays With Morrie" as part of its curriculum.

All these lessons being learned - and Morrie isn't even here to teach them. What I've realized is that the effect you have in this world is not in your wealth or your place on a magazine's Top 100 list; it's in every soul you touch and every young one you teach.

It is the reason you often read me writing about children in Detroit, or an orphanage/mission I operate in Haiti. I am drawn to children, as a middle-age man, the way I was drawn to Morrie as a younger one.

Maybe that's the way Morrie was drawn to me.

In the afterword for the new edition of "Tuesdays," I mention a little Haitian girl that my wife and I have been taking care of for nearly two years. She is afflicted with DIPG, a terrible brain tumor that is virtually always fatal. It's the same thing that took young Chad Carr in 2015.

Her name is Chika, she is 7 years old, one of our kids at the orphanage, and while modern medicine was able to give her months of wonderful reprieve where she laughed and danced and sang and enthralled us, she is in very dire straits now.

And once more in my life, I find myself sitting beside a soul who has little time left. Once more, I am missing work to be at a bedside - not just on Tuesdays, but every day of the week. And once again, I am learning about love, meaning and sacrifice.

Maybe this is my role in life. Maybe it's just coincidence. But 20 years after it was published, I reread the last words of "Tuesdays With Morrie":

"The teaching goes on."

It is so true.
Contact Mitch Albom: malbom@freepress.com. Check out the latest updates with his charities, books and events at mitchalbom.com. Catch "The Mitch Albom Show" 5-7 p.m. weekdays on WJR-AM (760). Follow him on Twitter @mitchalbom. To read his recent columns, go to freep.com/sports/mitch-albom.
New 'Tuesdays'

What: 20th anniversary edition of "Tuesdays With Morrie," with a new afterword from author Mitch Albom, will be released Tuesday

Publisher: Broadway Books

Price: $15

Pages: 240

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Mitch Albom: 20 years later, 'Tuesdays with Morrie' still teaching

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Twenty-two years ago, I flipped on the TV and my life changed forever. An old professor of mine, Morrie Schwartz, was on the "Nightline" program, talking to Ted Koppel. About dying. My mouth dropped. Morrie was more than a former teacher.

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"The truth is, part of me is every age. I'm a three-year-old, I'm a thirty-seven-year-old, I'm a fifty-year-old. I've been through all of them, and I know what it's like. I delight in being a child when it's appropriate to be a child. I delight in being a wise old man when it's appropriate to be a wise old man. Think of all I can be! I am every age up to my own."-Chapter 17, Page 120

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Mitch Albom and Morrie Schwartz together.

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Mitch Albom and Morrie Schwartz together.

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This is a picture of Mitch visiting Morrie.

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This clip is from page 32 and is the chapter The Classroom (chapter 6) and it's about the first time Mitch visits Morrie. Morrie is getting lots of attention from the public because of his Nightline interview. We learn about what they had missed and Mitch's opinion how Morrie is doing.

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ASL is also known as motor neurone disease (MND) and Lou Gehrig's disease. It is a terminal illness as there is no cure. However there is medication and therapy patients can take to slow ALS down and reduce discomfort. It is very rare with fewer than 20,000 cases in the US per year. (link below for more information)

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ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. A-myo-trophic comes from the Greek language. "A" means no. "Myo" refers to muscle, and "Trophic" means nourishment - "No muscle nourishment." When a muscle has no nourishment, it "atrophies" or wastes away. "Lateral" identifies the areas in a person's spinal cord where portions of the nerve cells that signal and control the muscles are located. As this area degenerates, it leads to scarring or hardening ("sclerosis") in the region.

Motor neurons reach from the brain to the spinal cord and from the spinal cord to the muscles throughout the body. The progressive degeneration of the motor neurons in ALS eventually leads to their demise. When the motor neurons die, the ability of the brain to initiate and control muscle movement is lost. With voluntary muscle action progressively affected, people may lose the ability to speak, eat, move and breathe. The motor nerves that are affected when you have ALS are the motor neurons that provide voluntary movements and muscle control. Examples of voluntary movements are making the effort to reach for a smart phone or step off a curb. These actions are controlled by the muscles in the arms and legs.

There are two different types of ALS, sporadic and familial. Sporadic, which is the most common form of the disease in the U.S., accounts for 90 to 95 percent of all cases. It may affect anyone, anywhere. Familial ALS (FALS) accounts for 5 to 10 percent of all cases in the U.S. Familial ALS means the disease is inherited. In those families, there is a 50% chance each offspring will inherit the gene mutation and may develop the disease. French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot discovered the disease in 1869.

Recent years have brought a wealth of new scientific understanding regarding the physiology of this disease. Studies all over the world, many funded by The Association, are ongoing to develop effective treatments and cures for ALS. Although there is not yet a cure or treatment that halts or reverses ALS, scientists have made significant progress in learning more about this disease. In addition, people with ALS may experience a better quality of life in living with the disease by participating in support groups and attending an ALS Association Certified Treatment Center of Excellence or a Recognized Treatment Center. Such Centers provide a national standard of best-practice multidisciplinary care to help manage the symptoms of the disease and assist people living with ALS to maintain as much independence as possible for as long as possible. According to the American Academy of Neurology's Practice Paramater Update, studies have shown that participation in a multidisciplinary ALS clinic may prolong survival and improve quality of life. To find a Center near you, visit http://www.alsa.org/community/centers-clinics/.

ALS usually strikes people between the ages of 40 and 70, and it is estimated there are more than 20,000 Americans who have the disease at any given time (although this number fluctuates). For unknown reasons, military veterans are approximately twice as likely to be diagnosed with the disease as the general public. Notable individuals who have been diagnosed with ALS include baseball great Lou Gehrig, theoretical physicist, cosmologist and author Stephen Hawking, Hall of Fame pitcher Jim "Catfish" Hunter, Toto bassist Mike Porcaro, Senator Jacob Javits, actor David Niven, "Sesame Street" creator Jon Stone, boxing champion Ezzard Charles, NBA Hall of Fame basketball player George Yardley, golf caddie Bruce Edwards, musician Lead Belly (Huddie Ledbetter), photographer Eddie Adams, entertainer Dennis Day, jazz musician Charles Mingus, former vice president of the United States Henry A. Wallace, U.S. Army General Maxwell Taylor, and NFL football players Steve Gleason, O.J. Brigance and Tim Shaw.

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ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. A-myo-trophic comes from the Greek language. "A" means no. "Myo" refers to muscle, and "Trophic" means nourishment - "No muscle nourishment." When a muscle has no nourishment, it "atrophies" or wastes away.

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Morrie's interview on Nightline with Ted Koppel

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Morrie's interview on Nightline with Ted Koppel

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(Tuesdays with) Morrie Schwartz: Lessons on Living, Ted Koppel Nightline Interview

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Mitch Albom is an American author, journalist, screenwriter, dramatist, radio and television broadcaster, as well as being a musician. He was born in Passiac, New Jersey on the 23rd May 1959. He got married to Janine Sabino in 1995. He has won several awards for his books and other work.( click on link below to learn even more)

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Mitch Albom is an internationally renowned and best-selling author, journalist, screenwriter, playwright, radio and television broadcaster and musician.

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The official movie trailer for Tuesdays with Morrie. The movie is based off the book and is extremely similar with few differences.