beduya, misa chap 5 ( comments in parentheses in between sentences)

CHAPTER V

PRESENTATION, INTERPRETATION, AND ANALYSIS OF DATA



Research Subjects

The subjects of the study were the main characters of Mitch Albom’s Tuesdays with Morrie who were Mitch Albom (the narrator) himself and Morrie Schwartz. It was Mitch’s and Morrie’s constant meetings on Tuesdays to discuss certain issues about the world especially of dying or death that made the book meaningful and contemplative. Furthermore, it was their discussions especially of death that the researchers want to analyze to be able to understand the concept of death. In doing so, there’s a need for the researchers to know the profiles of these characters.

First, Morrie Schwartz, who was the dying person, was the favorite teacher of Mitch Albom when Mitch was still a college student. Moreover, at the latter part of the book, Morrie also admitted that Mitch was his favorite student and even treated Mitch like his own son. Morrie was a professor in sociology teaching social psychology, mental illness and health, and group process at Brandeis University in the city of Waltham, Massachusetts. He was a good and liberal teacher. He was open to all students of different religions due to the fact that he was a religious mutt. He was also a lively teacher who satisfies himself by dancing at Harvard Square every Wednesday night before he got sick. He was a family man. He was a respectful and loving husband to his wife, Charlotte. He was also a loving and caring father to his two sons, Rob and Jon who were already successful professionals by the time he was dying. In the brink of death, he shared philosophical aphorisms which transcend all religions to Mitch. His death became a source of reflection for many people: from the ordinary people who asked for his counsel to Mitch who he shared his Tuesdays with.

Next, Mitch Albom who was the author of the book Tuesdays with Morrie, was also a character of the story himself since he was the person who visits Morrie every Tuesday. Moreover, since the book was a true-to-life story based on Morrie’s life as he approaches death, Mitch can’t use pseudonyms to represent his point of view and as the person whom Morrie met with on Tuesdays. Mitch graduated from Brandeis University, the same school where Morrie teaches. After graduation, he left for New York to catch his dream of being a musician. However, he was not successful in achieving his dream. With the death of his uncle, instead of pursuing his dream, Mitch was compelled to take up graduate studies and earned a master’s degree in journalism. He became a sports writer; a person who writes other people’s stories of fame. He became very busy. In exchange for success, he threw away all his important relationships including with his brother, with his wife and with Morrie. But not so long after he watched the “Nightline”, a TV show of Ted Koppel who invited Morrie Schwartz as their guest on one specific episode. He was shocked by the news that his favorite teacher was dying and he doesn’t even have any contact with him since the graduation day. Consequently, he decided to meet Morrie every Tuesday to talk about life and issues of the world.

Analysis

With the research study’s goal in mind, the researchers will provide answers for each of the specified sub-problems with the study framework as the basis.

To start with, the dying man was Morrie Schwartz who was evoked to cope with death by two factors: his awareness of his imminent death and the death of his parents.

Factors

The researchers’ first factor was the proposition of Kalish (as cited in Copp, 1998) which was used by Corr (as cited in Copp, 1998) in his Task-Based Approach Theory. Specifically, Kalish (as cited in Copp, 1998) proposed that the dying person’s awareness of his/her imminent death evokes both coping and action responses from the dying person. In the book, Mitch narrated how Morrie learned the status of his physical condition in “Syllabus”:

Finally, on a hot, humid day in August 1994, Morrie and his wife, Charlotte, went to the neurologist’s office, and he asked them to sit before he broke the news:

Morrie had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Lou Gehrig’s disease, a brutal, unforgiving illness of the neurological system.

There was no known cure. (p. 7)

At first, the doctor’s diagnosis shocked and perturbed Morrie and his wife, Charlotte. Morrie was shocked by his realization that the world around him seems not to care about his condition. Charlotte, Morrie’s wife, on the other hand began panicking about managing the disease, paying the bills and managing the time left before Morrie’s death. However, as the disease crept up to Morrie, Morrie learned to acknowledge and accept his impending death. Instead of escaping death and/or suffering by committing suicide or euthanasia (Humphry, 1991), Morrie tried to cope with it. As proposed by Kalish (as cited in Copp, 1998), Morrie, just like any dying person, was evoked by his incurable disease which was amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) to cope with death. Furthermore, the researchers hypothesized that the reason why Morrie chose to cope with death was that he wanted to live his remaining days wisely and meaningfully. How would Morrie cope with death was depicted on Mitch’s narration in “Syllabus” with the italicized words representing Morrie’s thoughts:

Instead, he would make death his final project, the center point of his days. Since everyone was going to die, he could be of great value, right? He could be research. A human textbook. Study me in my slow and patient demise. Watch what happens to me. Learn with me. (p. 10)

The narration above implies that awareness of one’s imminent death is really a potent factor that evokes a dying person to cope with death as suggested in Charles Corr’s (as cited in Copp, 1998) Task-Based Approach Theory. Instead of succumbing to death, Morrie lets his self to be the “human textbook”, to be a source of reflection and comprehension on death.

Moreover, it is true that Morrie’s course of action can be identified as the stage of acceptance as suggested by Kubler-Ross’s (1975) Stage Theory of Dying. However, Kubler-Ross’s (1975) Stage Theory of Dying proposed that the stage of acceptance is the final stage of dying which means that this stage is achieved when the dying person is really close to death which was not the case with Morrie. Morrie on the other hand may become shocked and confused when he learned about his imminent death but he just sooner accepted it. Weeks after the doctor broke the news to Morrie that Morrie was dying as depicted in “Syllabus” on page 7, Morrie showed his acceptance by organizing a “living funeral” as stated in “Syllabus” on pages 12-13. In the “living funeral”, Morrie was able to properly bid goodbye and express his feelings towards his family and friends and so as Morrie’s family and friends to Morrie. Furthermore, Morrie’s course of action has verified the researchers’ assumption that Morrie’s coping process with death coincided with Charles Corr’s (as cited in Copp, 1998) Task-Based Approach Theory.

Other than awareness of one’s imminent death, the researchers deemed the dying person’s past experiences with death as a factor that stimulates him/her to cope with death. Most of the psychological studies such as Hostler’s (as cited in Demmin, 1986), Hall’s (as cited in Demmin, 1986) and Demmin’s (1986) suggested that children who are terminally ill and who have past experiences with death tend to have advanced concept of death. The researchers then deduced that the proposition must be also true to the dying people. The researchers speculated that a dying person who already experienced the death of a family will probably try to avoid committing the same mistakes. Specifically, the dying person will avoid the mistake of being not able to do the things that should have done or words that should have said which is the same to Humphry’s (1991) suggestion to the dying people who were undecided on committing suicide or euthanasia.

In relation to our study, Morrie was only eight years old when he first experienced death of a family. Specifically, it was his mother who died when he was only eight years old. The pain and loneliness brought by the death of his mother remained as he grows up and this was clearly exposed in “The Audiovisual, Part Two” during the interview of Morrie with Ted Koppel, the host of ABC-TV’s “Nightline” show. Morrie shared his feelings about the death of his mother in this way:

I lost my mother when I was a child … and it was quite a blow to me … I wish I’d had a group like yours where I would have been able to talk about my sorrows. I would have joined your group because…[...]because I was so lonely … (p.71-72)

This particular sentiment was Morrie’s response to a mail of a Pennsylvanian schoolteacher who taught children who experienced death of a parent. Moreover, this schoolteacher asked for Morrie’s advice on how to cope with these children. After that, Ted Koppel can’t believe when Morrie affirmed that the pain of the death of his mother has goes on through the years of his life.

Moreover, since the death of Morrie’s mother caused pain and loneliness to Morrie, it can be inferred that Morrie perhaps wanted to do the opposite in his death. Morrie doesn’t want his death to cause pain and loneliness to the people around him. Having that reason and as a commencement of his coping process with death, Morrie established and strengthened relationships by making himself available for discussion and counseling.

Following the death of Morrie’s mother was the death of Morrie’s father, Charlie, which brought another pain to Morrie but at the same time helped him to prepare for his own death. With the death of his father, Mitch narrated Morrie’s thoughts in “The Ninth Tuesday”:

Still, his father’s death helped prepare Morrie for his own. This much he knew: there would be lots of holding and kissing and talking and laughter and no good-byes left unsaid, all the things he missed with his father and his mother. When the final moment came, Morrie wanted his loved ones around him, knowing what was happening. No one would get a phone call, or a telegram, or have to look through a glass window in some cold and foreign basement. (p.139-140)

The narration above shows how affected Morrie was from the death of his parents and how he would prepare for his own death. The narration also implies that the death of Morrie’s father strengthened Morrie’s urge to cope with his death since he doesn’t want the people around him, especially his family, to miss the things that he missed with his parents.

Furthermore, the researchers hypothesized that one’s degree of closeness to the dying or dead person affects one’s motivation to prepare for or cope with death. As shown by the narrations in “The Audiovisual, Part Two” and “The Ninth Tuesday”, the death of Morrie’s mother only stimulated him to make people around him accept his death and be happy with it. However, with the death of Morrie’s father, Morrie was strongly determined not to end up like his father who died without establishing relationships even with his own family.

Coping Process

The researchers have already discussed the factors that evoked Morrie to cope with death. In this section, the researchers will discuss Morrie’s coping process with death which can be accomplished by fulfilling the ‘tasks’ specified in Charles Corr’s (as cited in Copp, 1998) Task-Based Approach Theory. In his theory, Charles Corr (as cited in Copp, 1998) postulated four areas of task-work according to needs: physical, psychological, social and spiritual. With that, the researchers will divide the coping process of Morrie according to the said areas.

To begin with, Corr (as cited in Copp, 1998) described physical needs as the needs that involve satisfying bodily needs and reducing physical stress in ways that are consistent to the things one values personally. Morrie satisfied his bodily needs by taking up medicines. Specifically, some of the medicines he took up were Selestone for his asthma, Ativan to help him sleep, naproxen for infections and morphine to ease his breathing. However, as the disease progressed, the pills Morrie had to take also increased. In “Syllabus”, Mitch explicitly narrated the point of time when Morrie satisfied his increasing health-related/physical needs:

The fall semester passed quickly. The pills increased. Therapy became a regular routine. Nurses came to his house to work with Morrie’s withering legs, to keep the muscles active, bending them back and forth as if pumping water from a well. Massage specialists came by once a week to try to soothe the constant, heavy stiffness he felt. (p. 11)

Furthermore, Morrie only ate food that he can chew and only drank healthy drinks. Moreover, Morrie’s sleeping habits was inconsistent; sometimes he couldn’t sleep due to his hard cough and sometimes he woke up late in the morning due to fatigue. Morrie also needed the help of a care worker to help him urinate, change clothes and wipe his ass out after using the bathroom.

The next need to be satisfied was the psychological needs. According to Corr (as cited in Copp, 1998), psychological needs involve maximizing one’s psychological security, autonomy and richness of living. He further said that psychological needs are associated with approaching death with importance as well as humor, revisiting the past, discovering life after death and others that constitute a healthy death as recognized by caregivers.

In relation to our study, Morrie satisfied his psychological needs through his conversations with Mitch on Tuesdays. With Mitch, Morrie was able to revisit not only their past as a teacher and student, but also his past memories with other people. Some of the memories were sweet, some were sad. In “The First Tuesday”, Morrie recalled his sweet memory of being a “coach” of Mitch when Mitch was still a college student. Further, he recalled his sad memory in “The Audiovisual, Part Three” in which he regretted of being not able to forgive his friend who died of cancer. Moreover, the constant meeting of Morrie and Mitch on Tuesdays is enough to show that Morrie approached death with preparedness and importance.

Every Tuesday, Morrie and Mitch used tape recorder to record their discussions on the important issues people have shunned or forgotten such as regrets, death, family, emotions, money, love, marriage, culture, and forgiveness. As part of his coping process, and securing himself psychologically, Morrie shared his ideas on these topics and prompted Mitch to give insights as well. This process constituted the bulk of Morrie’s and Mitch’s “final thesis” together which indicates that Morrie really approached death with importance.

Moreover, Corr (as cited in Copp, 1998) described social needs as the needs that involve sustaining and enhancing interpersonal relationship or attachment one values, sharing to other people how death affected one’s life and finishing unfinished business such as bidding goodbyes to long-lost friend/s and asking forgiveness.

In satisfying social needs, Morrie initiated group discussions on death and dying with his friends, colleagues, and meditation teachers. Aside from that, he also made his self available for counseling for the bereaved people and thus, he allowed his self to be interviewed by the media to share his insights as death creeps up to him. He specifically made three interviews with Ted Koppel on the “Nightline” show which deemed by Mitch as abusive since the show used Morrie’s condition as a death drama to yield profit. However, Morrie was okay with that since he also benefitted from it, as he stated in “The Ninth Tuesday”:

Mitch, maybe they are using me for a little drama. That’s okay. Maybe I’m using them, too. They help me get my message to millions of people. I couldn’t do that without them, right? So it’s a compromise. (p. 132)

This statement from Morrie clearly showed that Morrie was really determined to help people who have shunned death by sharing his insights as death creeps up to him. As a matter of fact, Mitch Albom’s book Tuesdays with Morrie which was Mitch’s and Morrie’s “final thesis” together is itself part of Morrie’s course of action in satisfying his social needs. With the publication of the book, even if he’s already dead, his contemplative philosophies and ideas on death will still live in the hearts of the people who have read the book.

In enhancing interpersonal relationship and bidding goodbye, Morrie organized a “living funeral” which was mentioned in “Syllabus” on pages 12-13. In the “living funeral”, Morrie was able to properly bid goodbye to his family and friends and so as Morrie’s family and friends to Morrie. Furthermore, he continued to strengthen his relationship with his wife and sons by keeping in touch with them. In “We Say Goodbye”, Morrie properly bid goodbye to his favorite student, Mitch Albom, and so as Mitch to Morrie. Lastly, Morrie helped Mitch to enhance Mitch’s relationship with his ailing brother, Peter.

Spiritual needs, the last need to be satisfied, was described by Corr (as cited in Copp, 1998) as the needs that needs involve recognizing, enhancing and confirming sources of spiritual strength and meaning and in doing so, fostering hope.

In our study, Morrie was a religious mutt; he doesn’t prioritize a single deity whom/which he can make bargains with/to. Thus, he contested the bargaining stage of Kubler-Ross’s (as cited in Copp, 1998) Stage of Theory of Dying which suggested that every dying person experienced the stage of bargaining. Though he was a religious mutt, Morrie was able to satisfy his spiritual needs by organizing faith-sharing sessions with meditation teachers who helped him strengthen his faith. Moreover, Morrie still felt culturally at home in Judaism as stated in “The Fourth Tuesday on pages 81 – 82. With the influence from Judaism, he believed that his suffering was part of God’s plan as what God had done to Job, but he joked that God had overdone it to him as implied on his dialogue with Mitch on pages 150 – 151.

By choosing to cope with death, Morrie showed that he really accepted death and was prepared for it. Morrie constituted the group of few who faced death bravely and with preparedness. His course of action was the same as Trelease’s (as cited in Kubler-Ross, 1975) observation on Alaskan Indians who also took an active participation in the preparation for their death. Specifically, Trelease (as cited in Kubler-Ross, 1975) stated that Alaskan Indians’ preparation for their death can be observed on their careful planning for their death, having celebration of prayers and hymns and bidding goodbye or talking to people they haven’t talked with for a long time.

Concepts of Death

In this section, the researchers will discuss how the experience of coping process with death affected Morrie’s and Mitch’s concept/s of death. Moreover, the researchers will also compare Morrie’s and Mitch’s concept/s of death before and after they started meeting on Tuesdays. Further, the researchers will determine the possible factors that formed or affected the concept/s of death of both Morrie and Mitch before they started meeting on Tuesdays. Lastly, the researchers will try to determine how Morrie’s concept/s of death affected that of Mitch.

To begin with, Mitch’s concept of death was the same as those of common people before he started meeting Morrie on Tuesdays. Like the common people’s concept of death, Mitch also feared death as it relentlessly brought suffering to his deceased uncle. Specifically, the elaborate description of the suffering of his uncle was narrated by Mitch in “The Student”:

I watched his strong body wither, then bloat, saw him suffer, night after night, doubled over at the dinner table, pressing on his stomach, his eyes shut, his mouth contorted in pain. “Ahhhhh, God,” he would moan. “Ahhhhhh, Jesus!” (p. 15)

This hostile portrayal of dying/death through Mitch’s uncle suffering affected Mitch and his uncle’s family. As depicted from the narrations and dialogues that followed the narration above, the researchers posited that witnessing the suffering of a dying person induces a conception of death as a phenomenon that should be feared since it causes pain, suffering and despair. As a result of witnessing the suffering of his uncle toward death, Mitch feared death since it only caused misery and pain to his uncle, to his uncle’s family and to him.

Furthermore, the researchers hypothesized that Mitch’s first encounter with death perhaps made him participate in Morrie’s coping process with death. It’s probable that Mitch doesn’t want to be helpless anymore with Morrie’s impending death. Moreover, since he wasn’t able to fully satisfy his uncle’s “dying wish” which was to look out for his uncle’s siblings, he was further motivated to help Morrie until his death.

Aside from fearing death, the death of Mitch’s uncle made Mitch view death as an enemy that needs to be defeated or something like a deadline of achieving accomplishments. The researchers arrived at this assumption by referring to the Mitch’s narration in chapter “The Student” on pages 16-17. As depicted from the said chapter, Mitch believed that in achieving accomplishments, he was also achieving every bit of happiness that he can get before he’ll get sick and die. Moreover, Mitch’s concept of death as an enemy to be defeated was not unique and was just the same as that of any ordinary person in our modern society especially the businessmen who are always in competition with others.

Moreover, Mitch’s concept of death as an enemy to be defeated coincided with Arnaldo, Fojas, Maniwang, and Alcuizar’s (1993) argument. Arnaldo, Fojas, Maniwang, and Alcuizar (1993)’s argued that common people view death as an enemy that needs to be defeated instead of a companion in one’s growth. They further added that our competitive society strengthened this concept of death. The researchers agreed that it is possible that Mitch was also pressured by our competitive modern society that’s why he was striving to get more achievements. Lastly, Arnaldo, Fojas, Maniwang, and Alcuizar (1993) pointed out that media was responsible for symbolizing death as an enemy to be defeated. However, in the book, it was Mitch’s personal encounter with death that caused him to view death as an enemy. This implies that other than media, personal encounter with death is also a potent factor that changes one’s concept of death.

Before he became aware his incurable disease, Morrie Schwartz’s concept of death was just the same as others who view death as a phenomenon that can be avoided by simply not thinking about it. His first encounter with death happened when his mother died when he was only eight years old. Before his mother died, there are times that his mother would yell out for him to get her medicines. However, young Morrie would pretend not to hear thinking that simply ignoring it will make his mother’s sickness go away. Thus, it was specifically when Morrie was still a child when he viewed death as a phenomenon that can be avoided by just simply ignoring it as implied from the narration in “The Professor” on pages 73-74. Furthermore, this instance coincided with Hostler’s (as cited in Demmin, 1984) argument that children don’t understand death but they may have past experiences with death that perhaps enhanced or affected their understanding of death.Moreover, the death of Morrie’s mother made Morrie view death as something that causes shame as depicted in “Professor”:

On the morning of the funeral, Morrie’s relatives came down the steps of his tenement building on the poor Lower East Side of Manhattan. The men wore dark suits, the women wore veils. The kids in the neighborhood were going off to school, and as they passed, Morrie looked down, ashamed that his classmates would see him this way. One of his aunts, a heavyset woman, grabbed Morrie and began to wail: “What will you do without your mother? What will become of you?” (p. 73)

As narrated above, death became a source of shame for Morrie, and self-pity as one of his relatives pitied him. This implies that death does not really affect a child’s concept of it without the pressure from other people or from the society. However, when the pressure comes in and when the people start to pity a bereaved child, the child also starts to pity his self and feels humiliation as he/she was being pitied upon by other people.

After the death of his mother, Morrie’s next encounter with death happened when his father died when Morrie was already rearing his sons. Having lost his father, Morrie, like Mitch, viewed death something like a deadline. However for him, he believed that by viewing death as a deadline, his relationships with his loved ones would be stronger as implied in “The Ninth Tuesday” on pages 139-140. He further viewed death as phenomenon that should be accepted by him, and his family and friends.

After presenting and analyzing Morrie’s and Mitch’s concept/s of death before they started meeting on Tuesdays, the researcher will then try to compare these concepts. Particularly, the concepts of death of both Morrie and Mitch were affected by their past experiences with death. Moreover, both Morrie and Mitch viewed death as something like a deadline, however, their treatment differs. Mitch viewed death as a deadline with negativity. He viewed death as a deadline of achieving accomplishments or things/properties as many as he can. Mitch ceaselessly and intensively exploited the time he still has to achieve “happiness”. Mitch doesn’t want to end like his uncle; he wanted that before his death he was already a very successful man even if it costs him his intimate relationships with his family and friends.

On the other hand, Morrie treated this perspective of death as a deadline with positivity. While Mitch doesn’t want to end up like his uncle, Morrie also doesn’t want to end up like his father who died without establishing intimate relationships. However, Morrie was different from Mitch because he gave more importance to relationships than to accomplishments. Thus, he viewed death as a deadline of establishing as many intimate relationships as he can.

The researchers have already discussed and compared the concept/s of death of Mitch and Morrie before they started meeting on Tuesdays. On the following sections, the researchers will discuss and analyze the development of the concept of death of Mitch and Morrie as they involve themselves in the coping process with death. Specifically, the researchers will analyze how the experience of coping process with death affected the concepts of death of Mitch and Morrie. Moreover, since during the process it was Morrie’s concept of death that had greatly developed, the researchers will also analyze how Morrie’s concept/s of death affected that of Mitch.

In “The Fourth Tuesday”, Morrie shared and compared his concept of death to common people including Mitch. In this chapter, Morrie lectured Mitch that “once you learn how to die, you learn how to live” which is Morrie’s another way of saying the better approach to death. What Morrie meant with his line was depicted on his conversation with Mitch in “The Fourth Tuesday”:

“Everyone knows they’re going to die,” he said again, “but nobody believes it. If we did, we would do things differently.”

So we kid ourselves about death, I said.

“Yes. But there’s a better approach. To know you’re going to die, and to be prepared for it at any time. That’s better. That way you can actually be more involved in your life while you’re living.”

How can you ever be prepared to die?

“Do what the Buddhists do. Every day, have a little bird on your shoulder that asks, ‘Is today the day? Am I ready? Am I doing all I need to do? Am I being the person I want to be?’”

He turned his head to his shoulder as if the bird were there now. “Is today the day I die?” he said. (p.81)

In other words, what Morrie meant is that since no one knows exactly when he/she dies, one should consider every passing day as the day that one will die. Moreover, when one thinks in that way, one should also be conscious if he/she had already lived his/her life well and meaningfully. He pointed out that people who usually feared death were unsatisfied people who lived without finding their meaning.

In “The Thirteenth Tuesday”, Morrie shared another contemplative concept of death to Mitch, “Death ends a life, not a relationship”. This concept of death was formed as Morrie‘s reaction to a particular book that he recently read. The book depicted of a hospital where a dead body was whisked away as soon as possible as if death is contagious. And this very depiction was also reflected on Mauksch’s (as cited in Kubler-Ross 1975) observation on how the health institutions such as hospitals treat a dead person. However, Mauksch (as cited in Kubler-Ross 1975) insisted that the reason why the hospitals quickly whisk away a dead body is that it symbolizes the hospitals’ failure as healers and not because hospitals perceive death as something contagious.

Even so, Morrie continued and pointed out that death is not something to be feared of and it’s not contagious. He continued that death is as natural as life and all of us will certainly die. Moreover, he reasoned out that the cause why people worry much about dying is that people view their selves as something above nature. What Morrie wanted to point out is that to be able to accept death, one should view oneself like any living thing that decays and dies. Further, one should view death as natural cycle of life: when there’s birth, there’s also death.

However, Morrie pointed out that humans are special living things because humans can love. This is the part where Morrie said, “Death ends a life, not a relationship”. This means that since humans can love, human can still live on – in the hearts of the people they have loved or touched, even when they are already dead. In “The Thirteenth Tuesday”, Morrie explained his point in detail:

As long as we can love each other, and remember the feeling of love we had, we can die without ever really going away. All the love you created is still there. All the memories are still there. You live on – in the hearts of everyone you have touched and nurtured while you were here. (p. 174)

Byrne and McMurray (as cited in Iranmanesh, 2009) proposed that nurses who work with dying people have an enhanced perspective and philosophy on death and dying. They further emphasized that these nurses’ view on death and dying became more reasonable. Specifically, these nurses view death as an inevitable, natural and real phenomenon of life.

Moreover, Copp (1998) commented that the strength of Charles Corr’s (as cited in Copp, 1998) was the assumption that dying was not restricted only to the dying individual, but the experience also affected the people who were drawn to that dying individual such as family, colleagues, or friends.

Synthesizing Byrne and McMurray’s (as cited in Iranmanesh, 2009) proposition and Copp’s (1998) analysis on the strength of Corr’s (as cited in Copp, 1998) theory, the researchers hypothesized that the experience gained from coping with death affected the concept of death of the people who were drawn to the dying person. Thus, the experience of coping process had not only improved Morrie’s concept of death, but also his family’s, friends’, and more especially, Mitch’s concept of death.

As previously stated, the researchers will also discuss and analyze how the experience from coping process with death affected the concept of death of Mitch. Specifically, in “Conclusion”, Mitch discussed the effects of the experience of coping process with death and how Morrie’s concepts of death affected his. He learned to view death as a medium that will make him strengthen his relationships with his loved ones as he had observed on Morrie. With the experience from coping process with death, he became closer to his professor than when he was still on college. Aside from that, he was able to reestablish his relationship with his brother, Peter. Further, he was able to fix and strengthen his relationship with his wife, Janine. Death became a tool for him to straighten his life, and to distinguish what is important to life and what is not. He looked back to the person he was before and tried to warn his self as narrated in “Conclusion”:

I look back sometimes at the person I was before I rediscovered my old professor. I want to talk to that person. I want to tell him what to look out for, what mistakes to avoid. I want to tell him to be more open, to ignore the lure of advertised values, to pay attention when your loved ones are speaking, as if it were the last time you might hear them .

Mostly I want to tell that person to get on an airplane and visit a gentle old man in West Newton, Massachusetts, sooner rather than later, before that old man gets sick and loses his ability to dance. (p. 190)

Lastly, Mitch learned from Morrie that there was no such thing as “too late” as what he had observed from Morrie who was constantly changing even in his death. Thus, he learned that even death can’t stop one to change and grow up. He learned to view death as what Trealease (as cited in Kubler-Ross, 1975) deduced from observing Alaskan Indians. Specifically, Trelease (as cited in Kubler-Ross, 1975) deduced that death only ends life but not growth itself; it is instead the start of the greatest growth in life in understanding, loving and faith.