Cover image courtesy of Amazon
Morris "Morrie" S. Schwartz (December 20, 1916 – November 4, 1995)*
Staying a week at my regular, family-style hotel in the nearby city of Pune, I found myself wanting a book to read, but without a lot of time to shop for one. With my driver's “okay," he double-parked and waited in the car on busy Moledina Road, and I was out the door almost before we had even stopped. I wove among small groups of people chatting and sidewalk sellers eying browsing shoppers, stepping back onto the street around the outstretched legs of seated bus riders waiting for their bus—until finally, I arrived at the wooden stands of stacked books on the sidewalk that amounted to a bookstore. I'd made purchases there over years.
There is a system of purchase that one follows there. One man suggests books; the other takes your money. Not desiring his advice today, I disengaged from the first by a thank you and a smile. Seeing me browsing, a woman in her twenties recommended a book, helping me wiggle and tug it out from its tightly packed place on the shelf. I tucked it under my arm, as I was unsure. Encouraged that I had found a first book, I glanced around—and as if my dad had guided me there, I saw Tuesdays with Morrie.* Hadn't he read this? Then I remembered his tone of importance telling me about it. I quickly paid for both books and hurried back to the car.
By the bottom of the first page, I put aside other reading. I felt that I, too, was present at author Mitch Albom's graduation from Brandeis University in Massachusetts, along with his parents. Morrie was there. He'd been Mitch's favorite professor. Mitch had been his favorite student. In just a few pages, I knew that I could pick out Morrie in a crowd by Mitch's wonderful description, "He is a small man who takes small steps, as if a strong wind could, at any time, whisk him up into the clouds. In his graduation day robe, he looks like a cross between a biblical prophet and a Christmas elf." Answering Morrie's request this day, Mitch assures him that he'll stay in touch. When Mitch steps back, he notices that Morrie is crying.
My realization is, "Responses come in different ways to different people; yet even in the simplest responses, we can know that something deeply matters, with no need for further explanation."
* Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie (London: Sphere, 2017).