Blog 19

Morrie wanted to be cremated. He had discussed with Charlotte and decided that it was the best way. Morrie had been having bad nights lately. He could sleep only a few hours at a time before violently hacking woke him. The nurses would come into the bedroom and pound him on the back and try to bring up the 'poison'. Even if they got him breathing again from the help of the oxygen machine, the fight would leave him fatigued the whole next day. The oxygen tube was up his nose this time. To me, it symbolized helplessness. I asked him what he would do if he had one perfectly healthy day.
"I'd get up in the morning , do my exercises, have a lovely breakfast of sweet rolls and tea, go for a swim, then have my friends come over for a nice lunch. Then I'd like to go for a walk, in a garden with some trees, watch their colors, watch the birds, take in the nature that I haven't seen in so long now. In the evening, we'd all go together to a restaurant with some great pasta, maybe some duck-I love duck- and then we'd dance he rest of the night. I'd dance with all the wonderful dance partners out there, until I was exhausted. And then I'd go home and have a deep, wonderful sleep."
It was so simple. Before I left that day Morrie asked if he could bring up a topic. My brother. I felt a shiver. I had been trying to call my brother in Spain for weeks. I saw Peter in my mind when he was eight years old, his curly blond hair puffed into a sweaty ball atop his head. I saw us wrestling. The grass stain soaking into our jeans. And then I saw him as the adult who had drifted away, thin and his face was bony from the chemotherapy treatments. "You've had these special times with your brother, and you no longer have what you had with him. You'll find your way back to your brother," Morrie said. How do you know? Morrie smiled. "You found me, didn't you?"