The Second Tuesday—— We Talk abo

I asked Morrie if he felt sorry for himself.

"Sometimes, in the mornings," he said. "That's when I mourn. I feel around my body, I moved my fingers on my hands—whatever I can still move— and I mourn what I have lost. I mourn the slow, insidious way in which I'm dying. But then I stop mourning."

Just like that?

"I give myself a good cry if I need it. But then I concentrate on all the good things still in my life. On the people who are coming to see me. On the stories I'm going to hear. On you— if it's Tuesday. Because we are Tuesday people."

I grinned. Tuesday people.

"Mitch, I don't allow myself any more self-pity than that. A little each morning, a few tears, and that's all."

I thought about all the people I knew who spent many of their waking hours feeling sorry for themselves. How useful it would be to put a daily limit on self-pity. Just a few tearful minutes, then on with the day. And if Morrie could do it, with such a horrible disease...

"It's only horrible if you see it that way," Morrie said. "It's horrible to watch my body slowly wilt away to nothing. But it's also wonderful because of all the time I get to say goodbye."

He smiled. "Not everyone is so lucky."

I studied him in his chair, unable to stand, to wash, to pull on his pants. Lucky? Did he really say lucky?

On this day, Morrie says he has an exercise for us to try. We had to stand, facing away from our classmates, and fall backward, relying on another student to catch us. Most of us are uncomfortable with this, and we cannot let go for more than a few inches before stopping ourselves. We laugh in embarrassment.

Finally, one student, a thin, quiet, dark-haired girl whom I noticed almost always wears bulky white fisherman sweaters, crosses her arms over her chest, close her eyes, leans back, and does not flinch, like one of those Lipton tea commercials where the model splashes into the pool.

For a moment. I am sure she's going to thump on the floor. At the last instant, her assigned partner grabs her head and shoulders and yanks up harshly.

"Whoa!" several students yell. Some clap.

Morrie finally smiles.

"You see," he says to the girl, "You closed your eyes. That was the difference. Sometimes you cannot believe what you see. You have to believe what you feel. And if you're ever going to have other people trust you, you must feel that you trust them too—even when you're in the dark. Even when you're falling."