Morrie Schwartz: Lessons On Living (DVD)
APPROX. 60 MINS. - PROD. YEAR: 0 - MPA RATING: NR
" Though this show has relevance for everyone, public libraries in particular would do a service for their patrons by adding this title to their collection.
Connect to Facebook/Twitter, recommend via email and much more.
From the opening moment when former Brandeis sociology professor Morrie Schwartz tells Ted Koppel that he thinks the newsman is "narcissistic," you begin to love the old guy and wish that he didn't face a scripted death by ALS. Better known as Lou Gehrig's disease, ALS gradually and systematically destroys all the nerve cells in the body, making any sort of voluntary or involuntary movement impossible, while leaving the mind untouched.
It sounds maudlin, talking to someone about dying, even with ABC spinning it as "Lessons on Living." But the public responded to this upbeat Jewish man. Asked, point-blank by Koppel, "What can this old guy tell me that's going to help me when I get to a similar point," the 30-year teaching veteran's brain starts to go into chalkboard mode:
1) Talk about it, don't hide in the corner, don't try to conceal it as if it's something horrible, because all that does is destroy your self image.
2) Accept it. This is you. You are a disabled person.
4) (A septuagenarian can certainly be forgiven for forgetting the number of his points) Be alert and awake to the things that interest you and be involved.
5) Be compassionate to yourself, to other people.
6) Treat yourself gently. Be kind to yourself.
And while he doesn't add this to the list, Prof. Schwartz says that for a terminally ill person, "The mourning never stops." The trick, he says, is to seek balance. "I have to cry, I have to mourn, but I have to enjoy the life that I have left," he tells Koppel. And to do that, he turned to his support network and confronted death head-on. "This culture's so stuck on death because of its fear," and that's unhealthy, the professor says.
The first show with Schwartz turned into a series of three, and that led former student Mitch Albom, a sportswriter, to phone his old professor. Then, when Prof. Schwartz's memory of him was so sharp that he asked, "How come you didn't call me 'Coach'?" as apparently he did as a sports-minded student, Albom felt he needed to do more than talk on the telephone one time. He decided to spend "Tuesdays with Morrie"—which, in turn, became a best-selling book. And lest anyone think that Koppel and Albom are exploiters of the worst kind, Prof. Schwartz relished the chance to teach an audience of millions about living while you're dying. "Up to now, I've been teaching small groups of Brandeis kids who are going to be lawyers or doctors," he said, and these sessions with Koppel gave him an audience he clearly regarded as his biggest and most important class. Albom, meanwhile, pitched the book idea only because his mentor was worried about leaving behind a mountain of medical debt for his survivors, and the best-seller ended up solving his financial problems.
