Albom, Mitch. Tuesdays with Morrie. New York: Doubleday, 1997. Print.
My observations are on pages 80-128 where Morrie and Mitch discuss death, family, emotions and fear of aging. The main themes include Morrie’s point that without love we can’t survive, and sometimes we forget that. Another point is that once you learn how to die, you learn how to live more fully. Our culture is obsessed with youth and once we let go of the fears of aging and dying we can better enjoy living.
“Everyone knows they’re going to die, but nobody believes it. If we did, we would do things differently… there’s a better approach. To know you’re going to die, and to be prepared for it at any time…That way you can actually be more involved in your life while you’re living” (P 81). In this quote, Morrie is basically saying that although we know death is inevitable, we are still shocked when it comes. However, if we did know exactly when we were going to die, the world would be different. Morrie says that if we acted as if each day were our last day, and we could die any second, we would be more aware of our actions, and what really makes us satisfied. In the movie, “The Last Holiday,” the character played by Queen Latifah learns she has only a short time to live. She quits her awful job, cashes in all her savings, and heads to Europe to enjoy life. In the process, she lives life to the fullest and meets people who are drawn to her wonderful outlook on life. Even as she is facing life, she is helping others live more genuine lives. She has nothing left to lose, so is very honest. While that Hollywood tale had a happier ending than Morrie’s, the point is the same: that facing death helps us to focus on what matters most in life.
“The truth is, Mitch, ‘once you learn how to die, you learn how to live’” (P 82). When I read this line in the book, it seemed to me that this is the core of the message that Morrie was trying to make. I think that by saying this, Morrie wanted Mitch to understand what it meant to die or to see death so that he could inevitably live his own life the right way. What Morrie is saying is that when people go through life, they aren’t really living because they are constantly afraid of dying. They’re also focused on accumulating things and success and lots of trivial things. However, if one ends up in a situation where they know they’re going to die, it makes them rethink all of the different actions they’ve made and they can really identify with how they should’ve acted or reacted. Only then can they really understand how to live. Morrie’s effort, through this book, is to share this insight with others before they are facing death.
“Love each other or perish” (P 91). This is during the discussion of family. Morrie is describing to Mitch where he would be without his family. This line is saying that people need loved ones around them and people who are there for them because that’s what will make them happiest. Morrie says that if he didn’t have his family around, he probably wouldn’t be as able as he was at that stage of the disease. When he says “love each other or perish,” I think it means that you need to be able to rely on other people. If someone goes through life with no one else around, it can get lonely and miserable and should that person get sick, there would be no one to take care of them. With people in our lives who love us and want to care for us, we are more likely to try and deal with whatever sickness comes our way.
“You’re afraid of the pain, you’re afraid of the grief. You’re afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails. But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head, even, you experience them fully and completely” (P 103-104). To me, this line says a lot. As in, there is a deeper meaning to what Morrie is saying. What he is saying is that in our culture, people are so afraid of feeling heavy emotions because it makes us feel vulnerable. We don’t like to seem weak to other people, or possibly being hurt, so we try and hide our feelings. If we could just allow the feelings to take over instead of burying them, then maybe we could get a better sense of what they actually feel like and really experience them for the first time. Most people don’t do this because we are too obsessed with how other people see us, or too protective of ourselves.
Morrie’s process of dying from ALS is very unusual in our culture. He was not focused on himself and his illness, but on other people. He was eager to share insights from his life to help others. Some of these insights include:
• Being around people you love is always better
• Be selfless even when at your weakest
• Don’t hold in too long and don’t let go too soon
One insight from Morrie’s experience is that dying at home, surrounded by friends and family, is a more positive alternative to dying alone in a hospital, hooked up to machines. Also, that drugs and medicines cannot take the place of love and caring. An interesting example of creative alternatives to care at the end of life was featured in the New York Times this week. [“Giving Alzheimer’s Patients Their Way, Even Doses of Chocolate,” Pam Belluck, January 1, 2011] At the Beatitudes Nursing Home in Phoenix, AZ, they are caring for elderly with dementia and Alzheimers in new ways. They allow them to eat and bathe when they want, they have stopped giving many medications used only to control them, and do not restrain them. They have fake bus stops outside, so people can sit at the bus stops (until they forget where they were going.) It has produced remarkable results. It seems that much of the medications and care is more about care givers now, and less about the patients. Similar to Morrie, the possibility of being heard and loved and cared for, and being allowed to give back, makes illness and dying more humane.
No comments:
Post a Comment