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“Tuesdays with Morrie” By Mitch Albom
43
into it, some had problems getting out. My generation seemed t0 struggle with the
commitment, as if it were an alligator from some murky swamp. I had gotten used to
attending weddings, congratulating the couple, and feeling only mild surprise when I
saw the groom a few years later sitting in a restaurant with a younger woman whom he
introduced as a friend. “You know, I’m separated from so-and-so …” he would say.
Why do we have such problems? I asked Morrie about this. Having waited seven
years before I proposed t0 Janine, I wondered if people my age were being more careful
than those who came before us, 0r simply more selfish?
“Well, I feel sorry for your generation,” Morrie said. “In this culture, it’s so important to
find a loving relationship with someone because so much of the culture does not give
you that. 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?”
He sighed. Morrie had counseled so many unhappy lovers in his years as a professor.
“It’s sad, because a loved one is so important. You realize that, especially when you’re
in a time like I am, when you’re not doing so well. Friends are great, but friends are not
going to be here on a night when you’re coughing and can’t sleep and someone has to
sit up all night with you, comfort you, try to be helpful.”
Charlotte and Morrie, who met as students, had been married forty-four years. I
watched them together now, when she would remind him of his medication, or come in
and stroke his neck, or talk about one of their sons. They worked as a team, often
needing no more than a silent glance to understand what the other was thinking.
Charlotte was a private person, different from Morrie, but I knew how much he
respected her, because sometimes when we spoke, he would say, “Charlotte might be
uncomfortable with me revealing that,” and he would end the conversation. It was the
only time Morrie held anything back.
“I’ve learned this much about marriage,” he said now. “You get tested. You find out
who you are, who the other person is, and how you accommodate or don’t.”
Is there some kind of rule to know if a marriage is going to work?
Morrie smiled. “Things are not that simple, Mitch.” I know.
“Still,” he said, “there are a few rules I know to be true about love and marriage: If you
don’t respect the other person, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. If you don’t know how
to compromise, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. If you can’t talk openly about what
goes on between you, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. And if you don’t have a
common set of values in life, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. Your values must be
alike.
“And the biggest one of those values, Mitch?”‘
Yes?
“Your belief in the importance of your marriage.”
He sniffed, then closed his eyes for a moment.
“Personally,” he sighed, his eyes still closed, “I think marriage is a very important thing
to do, and you’re missing a hell of a lot if you don’t try it.”
He ended the subject by quoting the poem he believed in like a prayer: “Love each
other or perish.”
Okay, question, I say to Morrie. His bony fingers hold his glasses across his chest,
which rises and falls with each labored breath.
“What’s the question?” lie says.
Remember the Book of Job?
“From the Bible?”
Right. Job is a good mare, but God makes him suffer. To test his faith.
“I remember.”
Takes away everything lie has, his house, his money, his family …
“His health.”
“Tuesdays with Morrie” By Mitch Albom
44
Makes him sick.
“To test his faith.”
Right. To test his faith. So, I’m wondering …
“What are you wondering?”
What you think about that?
Morrie coughs violently. His hands quiver as he drops them by his side.
“I think, “he says, smiling, “God overdid it.”
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