Chapter 20 Ninth Tuesday - Talking about Eternal Love

The leaves were beginning to change color, turning West Newton's woodland ride into a golden picture.Over in Detroit, the war waged by the unions has stalled, with each side accusing the other of being insincere in the negotiations.The news on TV was equally depressing.In Kentucky, three men threw a tombstone from a highway bridge, shattering the windows of a car passing below and killing a teenage girl who was on a pilgrimage with her family.The O.J. Simpson case is drawing to a close in California, and the nation seems to be watching.Even the TVs in the airport are broadcasting programs from the cable network, so you can keep up with the latest developments in the case when you enter and leave the airport.

I called my brother in Spain a few times and left a message saying I really wanted to talk to him, I've been thinking about both of us, and a few weeks later I got a short message from him saying everything was fine Okay, but he really doesn't want to talk about his illness, sorry. For my professor, it wasn't the talk of the disease that tormented him, but the disease itself.Just after my last visit with him, the nurse catheterized him, and his piss drained through the tube into a plastic bag next to the chair.His legs needed constant massage (his immobile legs were still painful, another brutal and ironic feature of the disease), and his feet had to be suspended inches from the spongy pads Otherwise, it was like someone poking his foot with a fork, and often in the middle of the conversation, he would ask the visitor to move his foot or adjust the position of his head buried in a colorful pillow.Can you imagine being unable to move your head?

Every time I visited him, Morrie seemed less and less able to sit up straight, his spine was out of shape.But every morning he still insisted on having someone drag him out of bed, wheel him into his study, and leave him with the books, papers, and hibiscus on the windowsill.He found something philosophical in this unique way of life. "I summed it up in my motto," he said. Tell me. "When you're in bed, you're dead." he laughed.Only Morrie could laugh at such bitter humor. He receives regular calls from the "Nightline" show crew as well as from Ted himself.

"They wanted to do another show," he said. "But they said they wanted to wait." until when?Waiting for your last breath? "Maybe. I'm almost there anyway." Don't say such things. "Sorry." I was a little annoyed: they should wait until your final stage. "You're angry because you're guarding me." he laughed. "Mitch, maybe they're trying to use me for a little more drama. Nothing, I'm using them too. They can get my message to tens of thousands of viewers. I can't do it without them, can I? So, let it be my concession."

He coughed, followed by a long gasp.In the end, a mouthful of phlegm was spit into the crumpled paper in his hand. "Anyway," said Maury, "I told them not to wait too long. Because my voice is going to go away soon. Once it gets into my lungs, I can't speak. I'm going to talk for a while now." Gasp. I've canceled a lot of appointments. Mitch, a lot of people want to visit me, but I'm so tired. If I can't focus on talking to them, I can't help them." I glanced at the tape recorder and felt guilty, as if I was stealing what little he had left.Precious speaking time. "Shall we call it a day?" I asked. "Are you too tired?"

Morrie closed his eyes and shook his head.He seemed to be going through a silent pain. "No," he said finally. "You and I have to go on. "You know, this is our last paper." Our last post. "We have to finish it." I am reminded of our first thesis we did together in college.Of course, that was Morrie's idea.He said I could write a magna cum laude thesis -- something I never thought about. At this moment, we are here repeating what happened more than ten years ago.Make an argument first.A dying man tells a living man what he must know.Only this time there is no time limit for my thesis.

"I was asked a very interesting question yesterday," Morrie said, looking at a tapestry behind me, covered with inscriptions written by friends for his seventieth birthday.Different words are embroidered on each piece of collage: from beginning to end.Great success.Morrie--the mentally healthiest person ever! What question, I ask. "Am I worried that I'll be forgotten when I die?" are you worried "I don't think I would. There are so many people who have been involved in my life so closely. Love is a feeling that lasts, and even when you're gone, you live on in people's hearts."

Sounds like a song - "Love is a feeling that lasts forever." Morrie giggled. "Maybe. But, Mitch, just take our conversations, do you sometimes hear me at home? When you're alone? Or on a plane? Or in a car?" Yes, I admit it. "Then you won't forget me after I die, as long as you remember my voice, I will appear there." Think of your voice. "It's okay if you want to shed a few tears." Morrie, he tried to make me cry when I was a freshman in college. "Someday I'll touch your heart," he used to say to me. Well, well, I say.

"I decide how my inscription will be written," he said. I don't want to hear the word tombstone. "Why? Does it make you nervous?" I shrugged. "Then let's not mention it." No, go on.How do you decide to write it? Morrie smacked his lips. "I want to write this: a teacher for life." He waited for me to recall the sentence. A teacher for life. "OK?" he asked. Yes, I said, great. I loved the smile on Morrie's face when I walked in.I know, he does that to everyone else.But he can make every visitor feel that his smile is very unique.

"Haha, here comes my old friend," he would greet me in a muffled, high-pitched voice as soon as he saw me.But this is just the beginning.When Morrie is with you, he is there for you with all his heart.He looks into your eyes and listens to you with the same concentration as if you were the only one in the world.Life would be a lot better if people's first meeting of the day was like meeting Morrie -- instead of a casual grunt from a waitress, driver, or boss. "I like to put my heart and soul into it," Murray said. "It means you should really be with him. When I talk to you now, Mitch, I try to focus on our conversation. I don't think about our meeting last week. I don't think about it." What's coming up on Friday, and I'm not thinking about another show Koppel is producing or the medication I'm on.

"I'm talking to you. All I think about is you." I recall when Brandeis used to teach this idea in his group therapy classes.At that time, I didn't think so, thinking that this is also a university course?Learn how to focus?How important is this?But I realize now that it is more important than any other subject in college. Morrie motioned for me to give him my hand, and as I did so, I couldn't help but feel guilty.Sitting before me is an old man who has reason to bemoan his pain and misfortune; if he wants to, he can spend every waking minute touching his withered body and counting the rate of his breathing .However, there are so many people who are so self-absorbed just for some trivial matter, their eyes only stay on you for thirty seconds and then wander away.They've already got other things on their minds -- calling a friend, sending a fax somewhere, or going out on a date with a lover.Only when you finished speaking, did they suddenly come back to their senses, and perfunctoryly say "ummmahah" and "yesyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy ><" to you. "Part of the problem, Mitch, is that they lived so quickly," Morrie said. "They didn't find the meaning of life, so they were busy looking. They thought of a new car, a new house, a new job. But then they found that these things were also empty, so they went back to running." Once you start running, I said, it's hard to stop. "It's not that hard," he said, shaking his head. "You know how I do it? When someone tries to overtake my car - and that's when I can drive - I put my hand up..." He tried to do it, but his hand only lifted six inches. "... I raised my hand as if to make a less friendly gesture, but then I waved and laughed it off. You don't raise your finger at him, you let him pass, and you laugh it off. "You know? Many times the other party will answer you with a smile. "Actually, I don't have to drive my car that fast. I'd rather focus on connecting with people." He has done an excellent job in this regard.His eyes get watery when you talk to him about misfortune, and crack when you make even a bad joke with him.He's ready to show you his affection, and that's a quality that's been lacking in our generation.We're good at putting things down: "What do you do?" "Where do you live?" But to really listen -- without any motivation or psychology of selling, taking advantage, or wanting to get something in return -- can we do it?I believe that many of the people who visited Murray during his final months were trying to get the attention they needed from him, not to give it to him.And the frail old man always satisfies them in spite of personal ailments and declines. I told him he was everyone's ideal father. "Well," he said, closing his eyes, "I have experience in this..." The last time Morrie saw his father was at a municipal morgue.Charlie Schwartz, a man of few words, liked to read his newspaper by himself under the streetlights on Tremond Street in the Bronx.When Morrie was little, Charlie went for a walk after dinner every night.He was a small Russian, ruddy-complexioned, with curly light-gray hair.Morrie and his younger brother David watched their father leaning on the lamppost from the window. Morrie wished he could come in and talk to them, but he rarely did.He never tucked the brothers up, kissed them good night, either. Morrie kept swearing that if he had children, he would do these things to them.Years later, he became a father, and he did. Charlie was still living in the Bronx just as Morrie started raising his own children.He still went for a walk, still read the newspaper.One night, he went out again after eating.A few blocks from his home he was confronted by two robbers. "Get the money out," one of them said, holding a gun. Terrified, Charlie dropped his wallet and ran.He crossed the street, ran up the steps of a relative's house, and collapsed on the porch. heart attack. He died that night. Morrie was called to claim the body.He flew to New York and went to the morgue.He was taken downstairs to the air-conditioned room where the bodies were kept. "Is that your father?" the staff member asked. Morrie glanced at the corpse under the glass cover, the corpse of the man who had scolded him, influenced him, taught him how to work; When he wanted to share his feelings for his mother with others, he had to suppress the memories in his heart. He nodded and left.He later said the terror in the room took away all his senses.It took him a few days to cry. But his father's death made Morrie know how to prepare for the last journey of his life.At least he understood that life should have lots of hugs, kisses, conversations, laughter, and goodbyes, all of which he didn't have time to get from his father and mother. When the final moment came, Morrie would surround him with all the people he loved and see for himself what happened.No one would answer the phone, or receive the telegram, or look at him through the glass in some cold, unfamiliar basement. In the tropical rainforest of South America, there is a tribe named Desana. They believe that the world is a constant energy body, which flows in all things.Thus, just as the birth of one life invites the end of another, so every death brings another life.The energy of the world is thus kept in balance. When they go out hunting, the Disana know that the animals they kill will leave a hole in the soul well, which will be filled by the spirit of the deceased Disana hunter.If no one died, no bird or fish would be born.I agree with this statement.Morrie agrees.The closer he got to the farewell, the more he seemed to feel that we were all creatures of the same forest.We have to compensate for what we gain. "It's fair," he said.