The Fifth Tuesday

Summary

This Tuesday Morrie and Mitch discuss family and children. Morrie again emphasizes the importance of love, especially love from a family. He feels that if he did not have the love and support from his family, that he would have nothing at all.

Morrie then discusses the joy he had in raising a family and asks about Mitch's own family.

Mitch has a younger brother who was always a family favorite. He moved to Europe after high school and caught pancreatic cancer just as their uncle had. His brother would not allow any of the family members to help him while he battled cancer, which made Mitch angry.

Mitch then recalls a memory of him and his brother sledding when they were children. The sled went in front of a car and the boys jumped off to safety. The two were filled with pride at having just skipped death.

Notes

As Mitch looks around Morrie's study he notices the many pictures of his family. In on particular picture, one of Morrie's sons is kissing him. Throughout the novel so far Morrie has emphasized continuously, humans' need for affection and compassion. Morrie is very openly affectionate with those around him which seems to be contagious. We can see from the pictures that Morrie raised his family to also appreciate this importance of love and compassion.

Morrie also describes his experience from having children. He feels that having children is learning to love and bond in the deepest way. It is apparent that Mitch has a void in his life and that is because he has never experienced this ultimate type of love.

Mitch recalls and instance where he and his brother were near death when their sled skidded in front of a car. Their friends who saw thought it was cool that they could have died (99). Albom states at the end of the chapter, that wasn't so hard, we think, and we are ready to take on death again (99). This causes us to reflect back on what Morrie said earlier about believing that we will die one day. Although Mitch and his brother could have died, they did not believe in the possibility of them dying. Mitch thus continued to never learn how to live his life. Had Mitch believed that he could have actually died, and he may at any time, we can assume that he would have lived his life entirely different from that day forward.

The Sixth Tuesday

Summary

Mitch arrives at Morrie's once again with his usual food supply. Morrie's wife, Charlotte, answers the door for the first time and she tells Mitch that Morrie is not doing so well this particular day. She also tells him that Morrie has not eaten any of the food that Mitch has been bringing because he can no longer eat solid foods.

As Mitch and Morrie start talking, Morrie talks of detaching (103) himself. He says that if one is too afraid of an experience a certain emotion, they he or she will never be able to detach themselves. The two discuss other emotions and the fears that come along with them inhibiting people to let go of the fear and to experience the emotion.

Morrie tells Mitch that he does not want to die in a state of fright and that he would rather die peacefully.

Notes

Morrie becomes noticeably sicker in this chapter and we can see that Mitch is scared of his death. Morrie's main topic in this chapter is emotions, learning not to fear them and how to detach oneself.

Morrie feels that in order to be able to let go of an experience or an emotion you must let the experience penetrate you fully (103). He further explains that if we hold back on emotions and don't allow ourselves to proceed through them, we will never be successful at detaching ourselves. He thinks that by throwing ourselves into these emotions, and allowing ourselves to fully experience them, then we will know exactly what they are. He feels that once we are able to recognize these emotions we will have the power to detach ourselves from them. This way we are able to see exactly what the emotion is and have the power not to let it control us.