Untitled Document

Morrie Schwartz Interview - Part I

Transcript - NIGHTLINE with TED KOPPEL

07/14/98

ANNOUNCER: July 14, 1998.

1st FRIEND: His strength, his composure has been a tremendous

inspiration to me.

2nd FRIEND: I just always, you know, think about Morrie and the way he

looks at life and the way he lives it to the fullest and then, you know,

you just kind of perk yourself up and say well, he's a fighter to the

end so why would I give up?

3rd FRIEND: And I told Morrie that I wanted to be like him when I grew

up. So he's that, he's the openness guru.

TED KOPPEL, ABC News: (voice-over) Morrie Schwartz is dead now, but

his gentle philosophy on facing death continues to inspire thousands.

MORRIE: Treat yourself gently. Be kind to yourself. You didn't

create your illness so you shouldn't be punishing yourself for having

that illness.

TED KOPPEL: (voice-over) Tonight, conversations with Morrie, lessons

on living.

ANNOUNCER: From ABC News, this is Nightline. Reporting from

Washington, Ted Koppel.

TED KOPPEL: By the time Morrie made his first appearance on national

television, he knew that he had only a few months left to live. By the

time a book about Morrie crept quietly onto the New York Times best

seller list, the old sociology professor had been dead for more than a

year. If we were talking about anybody but Morrie Schwartz, it would be

a little bizarre to begin by referring to the manner in which he died.

If you're at all familiar with Morrie, though, either through Mitch

Albom's book, which has been on the best seller list now for 39 weeks,

or because you met Morrie on Nightline three years ago, if you know

anything about the way he died, you'll understand that this was his

greatest gift, not to his family and close friends, perhaps, but

certainly to the millions of us who discovered what a giant this elfin

little man was as we watched him live out his last few months on earth.

He did that with a mixture of grace and fear, pathos and humor and a

quirky kind of faith in the unity of the human family that could still

embrace a reporter from Washington whom he'd never met before and a

sports columnist from Detroit who'd once been a student of his but

who'd fallen out of touch. Mitch Albom, whose book Tuesdays With

Morrie, has now reached almost 800,000 copies in print, writes mostly

about games for the Detroit Free Press. He joins us here inWashington.

I'd love to think it's becauseyou're such a great writer or I'm such

a great interviewer, but it really isn't either one of us. It was

something about Morrie.

MITCH ALBOM, Auhor, "Tuesdays With Morrie":I think it was all about

Morrie and this unbeatable spirit about what's really important in life

even in the face of death and I thank you for bringing it to light

because I never would have even known until I saw the program initially

and I was reunited with him and then the series of my meetings with him

turned into a last class and a lot of people have shared in that.

TED KOPPEL: And it is amazing to me, and I rather suspect it's amazing

to you that it's been on the best seller list this long. You were

telling me just before the program now translated into 15 languages,

being sold in 17 countries. What is the universal quality here?

MITCH ALBOM: Well, I think it's three things, Ted. Number one,

everybody has had one teacher that's touched them in their lives like

that and I think they see that in Morrie. Number two, everybody is going

through life wondering is this what it's really all about and, you know,

shouldn't I find a little bit more meaning to it. And I think in

Tuesdays With Morrie they kind of find that, too. And number three,

every one of us has lost someone dear to us at some point or another or

is going to. And I think the way Morrie said goodbye without really

saying completely goodbye, you know, we still have these kind of

conversations he and I when I look up at the sky, I think everybody

feels that they want to have that relationship with someone in their

life that means something to 'em when they lose them. I think that's why

they come to the book.

TED KOPPEL: The interesting thing is that the television program, and

we did three of them, preceded the book, and now there are I don't know

how many of those hundreds of thousands of people who've bought the book

who've never seen Morrie and who are going to now get their first

opportunity to see the man about whom you wrote so lovingly. It was

three years ago when Morrie Schwartz reluctantly agreed to be

interviewed by me, but it began with Morrie interviewing me for the

part.

(voice-over) Television anchors who normally enjoy a broad, if

shallow fame, tend to diminish in importance in direct proportion to

where you're going. Morrie is going to die. Before he does, he has some

preconceptions about me that he wanted to share.

MORRIE: You're narcissistic.

TED KOPPEL: I'm narcissistic?

MORRIE: Yeah.

TED KOPPEL: No.

MORRIE: You're not? Really?

TED KOPPEL: I'm too ugly to be narcissistic.

MORRIE: I thought you were a narcissist when I saw you on TV.

TED KOPPEL: Really?

MORRIE: Up.

TED KOPPEL: Why is that?

MORRIE: Because you acted as if you knew everything and I said to your

crew today, this is going to be a tough one for him because he doesn't

know anything about dying.

TED KOPPEL: That's true.

MORRIE: And I know more than you do.

TED KOPPEL: (voice-over) He does, indeed. Morrie, and it's not out of

lack of respect but at his insistence that everyone calls him by his

first name, Morrie knows more about dying than most people would care to

learn. He suffers from a disease called ALS, better known as Lou

Gehrig's Disease. While the senses and the intellect remain intact

until death, the nerve cells which feed and stimulate the body's muscles

gradually disintegrate. Morrie has already lost the use of his legs.

Before too long the hands and arms will go and eventually he will lose

the ability to chew and swallow and talk. So while he still can this

one time sociology professor at Brandeis, he does to the joy and

amazement of family and a widening circle of friends alike.

4th FRIEND: I half kiddingly told some of my friends it's sort of like

driving professor Daisy in that there's just a wonderful charm and

warmth to him that makes this a joy in many ways.

TED KOPPEL: Nine million people out there give or take half a million

here or there, nine million people who are watching you right now...

MORRIE: Right.

TED KOPPEL: And saying what can this old guy tell me that's going to

help me when I get to a similar point. I mean we're not all going to

die the same way.

MORRIE: I could give you a number of statements, didactic, one, two,

three, four. They may or may not mean anything to you. First, talk

about it. Don't hide in the corner. Don't try to conceal it as if it's

something horrible because all it does it destroy your self-esteem.

It's very important to keep that self-esteem.

Two, accept it. This is you. You are a disabled person. I'm not

ashamed of that as long as I have my mind and my heart.

Three, keep an open heart and open it up further and further and

further until you encompass as much as you can with your love. It

sounds kind of sappy but it's not. It's not.

Four, be alert and aware to the things that really interest you and go

for it. Be involved.

Five, be compassionate. Be compassionate to yourself, to other

people.

Six, treat yourself gently. Be kind to yourself. You didn't create

your illness so you shouldn't be punishing yourself for having that

illness.

TED KOPPEL: (voice-over) Morrie is the first to admit his good fortune

in having such a vast support system surrounding him.

MORRIE: Get your support system, as many people around you who love

you as you possibly can. Stay with them and they'll stay with you.

They'll come back and forth and so on and let you know that they love

you and let you know that you matter to them in their lives.

5th FRIEND: I told you I have a title for it?

MORRIE: No, what?

5th FRIEND: Ah. After six years a title.

MORRIE: Yeah, right.

5th FRIEND: Somebody said look with wht you're going through is

there anything that you'd like to ask of us, you know, is there any way

we can be helpful. And Morrie said in his typical way let me think

about it. So the next time we met two weeks later he had a list. He

said, you know, if you really want to help these are things I'd like.

If you don't, that's OK, too. And the list, I remember, started out

with call me a lot, you know, I like to talk on the phone. Send me

funny things to read. Go to the movies with me if you can arrange that.

You know, come over and spend time. And he went through a list and

people were touched and moved. And I began to get the awareness that

rather than retreating, as many people do, Morrie was very fluid and

free with his feelings, as you've probably seen. Rather than

withdrawing, he's really reached out and said look, you know, you're my

friends. If you want to be helpful, this is what I'd like.

MORRIE: This is a time to do a life review, to make amends, to

identify and let go of regrets, to come to terms with your unresolved

relationships.

TED KOPPEL: In a moment, how Morrie overcame his fear of death.

(Commercial Break)

6th FRIEND: May I be full of peace, may I be full of joy, may I be

free from suffering and just one phrase at a time. See if you can get

behind each phrase. You're only wishing yourself well. See how full

you can be with each phrase.

TED KOPPEL: You told me that you were an agnostic from the time you

were 16 until recently. What changed your mind?

MORRIE: My impending death and my meditation teacher and a growing

sense of the interconnectedness between all of us. I don't know if we

have time for me to tell you the story about the wave. It'll take about

two minutes. Want to hear it? There's this little wave, this he wave

who's bobbing up and down, I'll shorten it, bobbing up and down on the

ocean having a great time and all of sudden he recognizes he's going to

crash into the shore. In this big wide ocean, he's now walking, he's

moving in toward the shore. He'll be annihilated. He gets so

despairing. My god, what's going to happen to me? And he's got this

sour despairing look on his face.

Well, in comes a female wave bobbing up and down having a great time.

The female wave says to the male wave why are you so depressed? The

male says you don't understand. You're going to crash into that shore

and you'll be nothing. She says you don't understand, you're not a wave,

you're part of the ocean. That's what I believe.

TED KOPPEL: You're part of the ocean?

MORRIE: That's right. I'm not a wave. I'm part of humanity.

TED KOPPEL: Morrie, you and I are doing something that doesn't seem to

be much in favor in this country.

MORRIE: No.

TED KOPPEL: We're not only talking about death, we're laughing.

MORRIE: Right.

TED KOPPEL: We're making jokes about it.

MORRIE: Absolutely.

TED KOPPEL: We're being a little bit irreverent about it.

MORRIE: Absolutely.

TED KOPPEL: Although there are times when clearly...

MORRIE: I am very sad about it.

TED KOPPEL: Very sad. You clearly feel that we should talk about it

more.

MORRIE: More and more and more. For me, it's one of the most

important things. If you hide it, it generates inside you. You suffer

with it. If you think it's so horrible, this culture is so stuck on

death because of its fear, hiding it, it's not knowing what to do with

it that what I'm saying is an alternative way of looking at it.

TED KOPPEL: There's a charming quality to dying in that it teaches us

a level of humility that we're incapable of having, I suppose, while

we're healthy, while we're just full of a sense of our own importance

and vitality.

MORRIE: Right.

TED KOPPEL: Of course the minute that you have a disease that you know

is going to kill you, it induces humility, doesn't it?

MORRIE: Well, Fred -- Fred -- Ted, I wouldn't say that.

TED KOPPEL: You see, now that's inducing humility.

MORRIE: I wouldn't say that. I think I'm less humble now than I was

before.

TED KOPPEL: Really?

MORRIE: Believe it or not, because I think I have some things to offer

the world. I think I'm getting grandiose, not swell headed but

grandiose. I think that up to now I've been teaching small little

classes, Brandeis kids, you know, but now I think that I'm able to do

something through you and through other vehicles that I wasn't able to

do before as a teacher. So, but if you mean humility a real sense that

I'm a simple human being like everybody else, older like everybody else,

bound to die like everybody else, yes, I feel that very strongly.

TED KOPPEL: A part of the ocean.

MORRIE: A part of the ocean, very true. Very true.

TED KOPPEL: When we come back, some blunt talk as Morrie prepares for

the worst.

(Commercial Break)

NURSE: I'd like to talk to you. People with ALS, when they begin to

have the respiratory failure, sometimes they're traped, (ph) they'll

have a hole cut here and they'll be traped and then they'll be put on a

ventilator so they can breath better.

MORRIE: Well, that's a decision that I'll have to talk with my sons

and my wife about. I certainly see a lot of people on these things.

What is the quality of their life? Can they interact with people?

NURSE: Sure, sure.

MORRIE: Are they energetic the same way I am energetic now? Are they

alive? Are they taking the world in? Are people dealing with them or

-- all those things, what's the alternative if I don't take this thing?

NURSE: That would be respiratory failure. It would be much...

MORRIE: That's a good way to go.

NURSE: -- much more quickly.

MORRIE: Is it a horrible death? Are you choking or, for how long?

NURSE: It would come, the choking starts, you know, your swallowing

ability is fine right now, obviously. You'll have more decreased

ability to swallow. You'll have episodes where you choke and then

eventually that's usually how you will die is you'll choke to death.

MORRIE: I don't want to choke like that.

TED KOPPEL: Talk about it for a moment. What happens with Lou

Gehrig's Disease? A lot of people out there don't know what Lou

Gehrig's Disease is.

MORRIE: I didn't know a lot about it either but I'll tell you what I

do know. The nurse was just here today. My hands are going. This is

the next phase after the legs.

TED KOPPEL: What does that mean when you say your hands are going?

MORRIE: I won't be able to use them in a short while. Things are very

heavy to pick up.

TED KOPPEL: You used a cruder example when we were in your bedroom

before.

MORRIE: Should I say it on TV?

TED KOPPEL: Go ahead and say it on TV because in many respects I think

it brings it home far more than everything else you've been talking

about.

MORRIE: OK. I'll say it on TV then. Somebody's going to have to wipe

my ass. I won't be able to do that for myself. Now that's getting

pretty far dependent and one of the things I say in my reflections is

indulge your dependency if you can't avoid it.

TED KOPPEL: Morrie, this conversation is by mutual agreement.

MORRIE: Absolutely.

TED KOPPEL: OK. I want you to confront for me the moment when your

still active mind is a prisoner of your no longer functioning body. Now

I know you've thought about that.

MORRIE: Of course I have.

TED KOPPEL: And I know that has to scare the hell out of you.

MORRIE: Not yet. Not yet. It'll scare the hell out of me when I get

there. It just scares me a little bit now. When I'm at that moment,

then I'll see how scared I am. But, but I have to make a decision, not

by myself, but with my friends and family, as to when it is enough.

Genug. (ph) No more. I don't want it. So, that's...

TED KOPPEL: Is that your right?

MORRIE: My right? My friends and family, absolutely. Not mine

alone.

TED KOPPEL: What you're talking about is...

MORRIE: Is death.

TED KOPPEL: Is death.

MORRIE: Absolutely.

TED KOPPEL: But not waiting for it.

MORRIE: No. Doing it when I feel that the quality of my life has been

destroyed to such a degree that I can't go on because I don't want to go

on. It isn't worth going on. It isn't worth going on because I am not

able to do the things that make me who I am, like relating to people

with affect, with enthusiasm, with -- on the other hand, on the other

hand, and I have to give you the other hand, when I talk to this with,

about this with my meditation teacher, she said maybe you'll want to go

on just to be an inspiration to other people. So I have to consider

this, too. Can I be? Will I be? Might I be?

TED KOPPEL: Must you be?

MORRIE: Must I be? It's all up for grabs whether I'll be able to

continue when that moment comes. I don't know. But I'm betting on

myself that I will.

TED KOPPEL: And I'll be back once again with Mitch Albom, in a

moment.

(Commercial Break)

MITCH ALBOM: -- because you won't be able to talk back. And he

laughed and he said well I'll make you a deal. After I'm dead, you

talk, I'll listen. And I laughed, but I realized in putting the book

together that's kind of the essence of it. Because if you lead a life

like he did with an emphasis on love and people and caring and time and

all those quiet little moments you don't get any credit for, than you

can talk to people after they're gone because they put their voice

inside you. But if you work all day and if you're at the office all day

and you don't spend any time giving that voice to people, it's not there

to share when they're gone. And that was Morrie's magic. I mean when I

see him on the tape there and listen to his voice it's, you know, I've

been hearing that voice every day since I started seeing him again and

not because I believe in ghosts but because he spent that kind of time

putting that voice in me. And I think that that's the lesson he would

have liked to have passed on to everybody.

TED KOPPEL: We have only a few seconds left, Mitch. Did you change

your own life after rediscovering Morrie?

MITCH ALBOM: I am trying every single day and he won't let me out of

that class either.

TED KOPPEL: Spending a little less time worried about the Detroit Free

Press?

MITCH ALBOM: Well, all work and a little bit more emphasis on family

and loved ones and people who matter, yeah, every day.

TED KOPPEL: Mitch, thanks very much.

MITCH ALBOM: Thank you, Ted.

TED KOPPEL: For the latest overnight news tune in to Good Morning

America. That's our report for tonight. We'll have another visit with

Morrie tomorrow night.

I'm Ted Koppel in Washington. For all of us here at ABC News in

Washington, good night.

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