For all that was happening to him, his voice was strong and inviting, and his mind was vibrating with a million thoughts. He was intent on proving that the word ‘dying’ was not synonymous with ‘useless’.
You will never know all there is to know. You will learn until your final days.
Finally, on the fourth of November, when those he loved had left the room just for a moment – to grab coffee in the kitchen, the first time none of them were with him since the coma began – Morrie stopped breathing.
He nodded toward the window with the sunshine streaming in. “You see that? You can go out there, outside, anytime. You can run up and down the block and go crazy. I can’t do that. I can’t go out. I can’t run. I can’t be out there without fear of getting sick. But you know what? I appreciate that window more than you do.
The end of loneliness is when someone needs you. And the world is so full of need.
Why didn’t I feel this before?” she whispered. “Because we embrace our scars more than our healing,” Lorraine said. “We can recall the exact day we got hurt, but who remembers the day the wound was gone?
You can feel the whole world and still feel lost in it. So many people are in pain – no matter how smart or accomplished – they cry, they yearn, they hurt. We all want the same things: comfort, love, and a peaceful heart.
This is how talents weave from generation to generation, how the shadow stretches, and how an artist born nearly a hundred years earlier begins to fill the soul of a child who shares his name.
Wanting what you can’t have. Looking for self-worth in the mirror. Layering work on top of work and still wondering why you weren’t satisfied – before working some more.
That’s how salvation works. The wrongs we do open doors to do right.
Take my condition. The things I am supposed to be embarrassed about now – not being able to walk, not being able to wipe my ass, waking up some mornings wanting to cry – there is nothing innately embarrassing or shaming about them. “It’s the same for women not being thin enough, or men not being rich enough. It’s just what our culture would have you believe. Don’t believe it.
You are born into your first one. Your mother plays the lead. She shares the stage with your father and siblings. Or perhaps your father is absent, an empty stool under a spotlight. But he is still a founding member, and if he surfaces one day, you will have to make room for him.
But the poor kids today, either they’re too selfish to take part in a real loving relationship, or they rush into marriage and then six months later, they get divorced. They don’t know what they want in a partner. They don’t know who they are themselves-so how can they know who they’re marrying?
It is 1979, a basketball game in the Brandeis gym. The team is doing well, and the student section begins a chant, “We’re number one! We’re number one!” Morrie is sitting nearby. He is puzzled by the cheer. At one point, in the midst of “We’re number one!” he rises and yells, “What’s wrong with being number two?” The students look at him. They stop chanting. He sits down, smiling and triumphant.
It is not just humans who are musical. Animals, too. This should be obvious in the thousands of birdsongs I have spawned, or the clicking of dolphins, or the moaning of humpback whales.
Suddenly it was terribly quiet, as if the earth itself were too stunned to breathe. I know this sound; silence is part of music. But just because something is silent doesn’t mean you aren’t hearing it. Frankie.
I know this sound; silence is part of music. But just because something is silent doesn’t mean you aren’t hearing it.
As usual, he saves his wife’s for last. He leans on the cane and he looks at the headstone and he thinks about many things. Taffy. He thinks about taffy. He thinks it would take his teeth out now, but he would eat it anyhow, if it meant eating it with her.
When people don’t believe in something, they’re lost.
In a strange way, I envied the quality of Morrie’s time even as I lamented its diminishing supply. Why did we bother with all the distractions we did?