Chapter 16 The sixth Tuesday - talk about feelings

I walked past mountain laurel and Japanese maple and up the blue sandstone steps of Morrie's house.A white rain cornice jutted over the porch like a cap.I rang the bell, and it was not Connie who answered, but Morrie's wife, Charlotte, a pretty, gray-haired woman with a sweet voice.She wasn't home often when I went—she's still working at MIT, as Morrie wishes—so I was a little surprised to see her this morning. "Morrie wasn't doing well this morning," she said.Her eyes were a little dazed, and then she walked towards the kitchen. I'm sorry, I said. "No, no, he'll be glad to see you," she said quickly. "I am sure……"

She stopped suddenly in the middle of speaking, and turned her head slightly, as if she was listening to something.Then she continued, "I'm sure . . . he'll feel better knowing you're here." I brought up the grocery bag from the supermarket—supplies were coming, I teased him—and she seemed to be smiling, annoyed at the same time. "There's plenty of food. He hasn't eaten much since you last came." I was surprised to hear that. He didn't eat?I asked. She opened the fridge and I saw chicken salad intact, vermicelli, veggies, empanadas, and everything else I'd bought him.She opened the freezer, where there was more food.

"Morrie can't eat most of the food here, it's too hard to swallow. He's on soft food and liquids now." But he never talked about it, I said. Charlotte smiled. "He didn't want to hurt your feelings." That doesn't dampen my feelings.I just want to be able to help.I mean, I want to bring him something... "You're bringing him what he needs and he's looking forward to your visit. He's been talking about your projects and he's said he needs to focus. Make time for it. I think it gives him A sense of mission..." Her eyes blurred again.I know that Morrie has trouble sleeping at night, he often has trouble falling asleep, which means that Charlotte often has trouble sleeping too.Sometimes Morrie would lie coughing for hours -- before he could get the phlegm out of his throat.They now have night nurses, and there are constant visitors during the day: former students, colleagues, meditation teachers, shuttle in and out of the house non-stop.Sometimes Morrie would have five or six people at once, and it was often when Charlotte came home from get off work.Although so many outsiders took up precious time with Morrie, Charlotte was patient.

"...a sense of purpose," she continued. "Yes, it's good for him." I hope so, I said. I helped her put the food she bought into the refrigerator.Various notes, messages, notices, and medical instructions were placed on the long counter in the kitchen.There were more bottles of medicine on the table--Celestone for asthma, Atifen for insomnia, Naproxen for infections--and powdered milk and laxatives.There was a door opening from the living room. ①The original texts of the drugs are Selessstone, Ativan, and Naproxen. "Maybe he's ready...I'll see."

Charlotte took another look at the groceries I had brought, and I felt a sudden unease.Morrie could no longer enjoy the food. The terrible symptoms of the disease were gradually revealed.When I sat down next to Morrie, he coughed harder than usual, his chest rose and fell in fits of dry cough, and his head thrust forward.After a violent toss, he finally stopped.He closed his eyes and sighed.I sat quietly and felt him slowly recovering. "Is the tape recorder on?" he asked suddenly, eyes still closed.Yes, yes, I quickly pressed the recording button and said. "What I'm doing now," he said with his eyes closed, "is detaching myself."

Detach yourself? "Yes, detach yourself. That's very important -- not just for someone like me who is dying, but for someone who is perfectly healthy like you. Learn to detach yourself." He opened his eyes and let out a long breath. "You know what Buddhism says? Don't bother yourself, everything is empty." But, I said, didn't you mean to experience life?All the good emotions, and the bad ones? "yes." So, what should you do if you are detached? "Ah, you're thinking, Mitch. But detachment doesn't mean not being involved in life. Rather, you should be fully involved. Then you can come out."

I am lost. "Accept all feelings—love for a woman, grief for a loved one, or as I have experienced: fear and pain caused by a fatal disease. If you avoid these feelings—don't allow yourself to feel them. Experience— -You will never be free because you are always afraid. You are afraid of pain, you are afraid of sadness, you are afraid of the emotional damage that love has to bear. "But once you're in it, in the ocean of emotion, you can experience it fully and know what pain is, what sadness is. Only then can you say, well, I've been through this emotion, I've gotten to know the feeling, now I need to get out of it."

Morrie stopped and stared at me, perhaps to see if I understood. "I know you're thinking, it's like talking about death," he said. "It's really like what I've said to you over and over again: When you learn how to die, you also learn how to live." Morrie talked about the moment that scares him the most: when he's gasping for breath so violently that he doesn't know if a second breath will catch it.It was the most frightening moment, he said, and his first emotion was fear.Scared and worried.But when he recognized the content and character of those feelings—the shivers in his back, the heat that flashed through his head—he was able to say, "Okay, this is fear. Leave it. Leave it for a while."

I was thinking how much such emotional processing is needed in daily life.We often feel alone, and sometimes we feel so alone that we want to cry, but we hold back the tears because we don't think we should cry.Sometimes we feel a rush of love for our partner, but we don't express it because we're afraid of the hurt those words might cause. Morrie's attitude is the exact opposite: Turn on the tap and flush with emotion.It won't hurt you.It will only help you.If you don't deny the entry of fear, if you wear it as a regular shirt, then you can say to yourself, "Well, it's just fear, I don't have to be ruled by it. I can face it it."

It's the same with loneliness: feel what it feels like, let the tears flow, savor it -- but at the end be able to say, "Well, this is my lonely moment, I'm not afraid of being alone, and now I'm going to let it go Aside, because there are other emotions in the world for me to experience." "Detachment," Morrie said again. He closed his eyes, then coughed. Coughed again. The coughing got worse. Suddenly, his breathing became short of breath.The buildup in his lungs seemed to be playing tricks on him, rising up and sinking, choking his breath.He was gasping for breath, and then he had a violent dry cough, and his hands were shaking--the way he closed his eyes and shook his hands was almost like a demon--I felt beads of sweat on my forehead.I instinctively pulled him up and patted his back with my hand. He put the paper in his hand to his mouth and spit out a mouthful of phlegm.

The coughing stopped.Morrie threw himself on the foam pillow, breathing hard. "How are you? Are you okay?" I said.I'm trying to hide my fear. "I'm... all right," Morrie whispered, holding up a trembling hand, "Wait...a moment." We sat in silence, and as his breathing slowed down, beads of sweat broke out on my scalp.He told me to close the window, he was cold from the breeze blowing in, and I didn't tell him it was eighty degrees Fahrenheit outside. Finally, he said in a whisper, "I know how I wish to die." I listened silently. "I want to die peacefully. Die peacefully, not like I just did. "That's when I need to be detached, if I die from that cough, I need to be detached from the fear, I need to say, my time has come. "I don't want to panic the world. I want to know what's going on, accept it, get into a peaceful state of mind, and go, you know?" I nod. Now don't go away, I hasten to add. Morrie forced a smile. "No, not yet. We have work to do." Do you believe in reincarnation, I asked. "Maybe." What do you want to do in the next life? "If I could choose, I'd be an antelope." antelope? "Yes, so graceful, so swift." antelope? Morrie smiled at me. "You find it strange?" I stared at his disfigured body, loose clothes, feet wrapped in socks resting stiffly on the sponge rubber mat, unable to move, like a prisoner in shackles.I picture an antelope leaping across the desert. no, i said.I don't find it weird at all.