Tuesdays with Morrie

The last class of my old professor's life had only one student.

I was the student.

Many books in the world are conceived, written, published, sold, read, and then forgotten. They are tucked away in your bookshelf, in a shadowed place, a corner wherein it is waiting, encased in dust, for the slim chance for it to be opened and read through again, with even the slightest fervor that had spurred the reader to have wanted to buy it. Tuesdays with Morrie may seem, at first, to be one of those books which are only worth scanning through once, then will be put away, only found during cleaning season, making the owner stare in surprise and say, "I own this?". But as you "scan through" this 192 - paged book, you will find that you will want to keep this book out in the open, for easy access, so as to be able to relish the message it contains once more.

Tuesdays with Morrie is Mitch Albom's (the author) personal experience. An old promise of keeping in touch with his old college professor, made during the author's graduation from college in 1979, is lost and rekindled over the years. After many events that had happened in Mitch's life, he finally decides to go and live up to this little vow. Consequential to many conversations with this old friend, he decides to visit, on a Tuesday, no less.

On the first Tuesday that he has come by, he is whisked off into a minute lecture about the world. Yes, generic, but a vast topic wherein you find your mind opening more and more, into broad branches of ideas, thoughts and understandings. Many important things that we may not have known or we may have been blind to are presented to us, and explained in such a way that our minds whir with this newfound piece of revelation.

"So you'll come back next Tuesday?" he whispered.

And so Mitch did.

Many more lessons of life follow. They converse about regrets, pity for oneself. Mitch hears of family, death, emotions. They talk of love and a day of perfection. So many aspects of life, many debatable, riddling topics bloom in spite of the lack of a proper classroom, chalkboard and books. But we learn that we do not need so much as a single scrap of paper to be able to gain knowledge. For, as we know, intelligence is not always written, talked about, or taught in the confinements of a school campus.

Many Tuesdays go by, and many enlightening exchange of words come with it, up until the fourteenth Tuesday.

On this Tuesday, Mitch graduates. On this Tuesday, student and professor say good - bye.

And so, the old man, who taught more than just any teacher in trigonometry or calculus or physics or any other subject would, passed on, to what he believed was something better. And so Mitch, attending the funeral, had come to conclude that this course in life was better than any he had taken - that the words that Morrie had quietly shared with him through his chapped, dry lips, in his hoarse voice, had imprinted something in him, not in the mind, but in the heart.

Truly, this book is not meant to sit out in one's bookshelf, hidden and eaten away by time. It is a book meant to be read over and over again, a book mean to be a constant reminder to all to live life at its fullest, and to understand all the things that it offers, up until the time where it ends.

The last class of my old professor's life took place once a week, in his home, by a window in his study where he could watch an old hibiscus plant shed its pink flowers. The class met on Tuesdays. No books were required. The subject was the meaning of life. It was taught from experience.

The teaching goes on.