Tuesdays with Morrie
By: Mike • Essay • 706 Words • December 5, 2009 • 977 Views
Essay title: Tuesdays with Morrie
Have you ever thought about how you would die? I’m sure you hoped it was a
quick, painless death. For a man in his seventies it was a slow, time-consuming death. He
contracted a life destroying disease, ALS. However, for this old timer, he saw it rather as
a blessing then the work of the some invisible force. He thought it was serendipitous.
Serendipity plays a life-changing role in Tuesdays with Morrie because this element of
accidentally finding good luck transforms Mitch Album from a materialistic workaholic
to a sincere human being; it also helps Morrie Schwartz pass along his story before it’s to
late.
I’m sure everyone has or will have a serendipitous moment in his or her life. It’s
just all in how you look at it. Morrie contracted ALS but sees the better side of his disease
that slowly consumes your body. “I’m on the last great journey…” (33). He knows he’s
going to die yet he sees the bright side of it; which is that unlike most deaths, were you
just die, he gets to say good bye to all of his loved ones. There is a lot of serendipity in
this life-moving book. Mitch taking Morries classes in college started the whole chain
effect of serendipity. Many people were serendipitous in this book. Not only was Mitch
lucky to catch his old college professor on the television, but us as readers benefited from
learning Morries lessons for and about life.
In Tuesdays with Morrie, Mitch was the character with the most serendipitous
Moments. From the very start he was lucky he just didn’t know it. The biggest
D. Hoffman 2
serendipitous moment had to have been when Mitch was flipping through the channels.
“A thousand miles away, in my house on the hill, I was casually flipping channels. I heard
these words from the TV set- “Who is Morrie Schwartz?”- and went numb” (23). Mitch
hadn’t seen or talked to his old college professor and friend such Mitch’s graduation
ceremony.