It is a difficult task to say goodbye to something or someone beloved, but it is even more grueling to do so with optimism and grace. On July 4th, 1939, Lou Gehrig said his final goodbyes to baseball in his infamous “Farewell Speech.” After 17 seasons in the MLB with the New York Yankees, Gehrig was forced to part from his career after being diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), now commonly referred to as Lou Gehrig's disease. ALS is a neurological disease that breaks down nerve cells, reducing functionality in the muscles and impacting physical function with no known cause (“What Is Als?”). Throughout his speech, Gehrig is personable with the crowd at Yankee Stadium to express the impact of the baseball community on his life.
Imagine being in a situation where there are a limited number of options and your life can only go in one direction. Has this ever happened to you? Either way, this is the predicament that the character of Jefferson faces in A Lesson Before Dying, who is sentenced to death for crimes that he did not commit. Although Jefferson has only thirty days left to live, he learns three valuable lessons that he carries with him into his final hours. This includes learning to open up to the people closest to him, showing kindness and love to those who have shown kindness to him, and finding self-worth in the age of Jim-Crow.
However, Mr. Schwartz did not die in sadness or with any regrets. Morrie taught humans “how to die”. Schwartz was a professor at Brandeis University. Morrie had a favorite student, Mitch Albom. Although graduation sets both men apart for years, upon hearing of Morrie’s fatal illness, ALS, Mitch rushes back to Massachusetts to see his old friend.
Mel was telling a story on how he used to think that her first wife was her life, but now he hated her guts. As for Terri, Mel 's second wife, she was telling a story about her previous husband who is abusive and hurts her, but she still thinks that he was able to do those things because of his love for her. As they reminisce about their previous romances and relationships, Mel interrupted the conversation when he said that if something happens to him or her wife, they will just grief for a while and then the surviving person will find someone else to
By talking to Morrie, Mitch learned how not to take life for granted. Morrie feels it’s important for Mitch to learn because he feels Mitch is wasting his life and taking it for granted. This talk changed Mitch’s outlook on life because he was completely neglecting the people in his life and with Morrie ’s help that changed dramatically. If it wasn’t for Morrie’s help Mitch would still be living his boring life and Morrie made him think about the choices he has been making and made him change his perspective.
Sound is embodied in the black body whether it be in everyday conversation, intimate exchanges with a loved one, heart wrenching calls, or music rendered from the soul. Sound is essential to living beings as both a primary and secondary sense used to interact with the world. Sound enables communication. Communication creates community. Community leads to emotional connections and understanding.
“In the middle of a crazy drunk life, you have to hang on the good and sober moments tightly.” (The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie page 216) This is a quote from the book that shows how Junior learns how to appreciate the good moments in life. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie the character Junior faces problems caused by drinking. The book starts off with his family living on the Indian reservation suffering from poverty and death.
Mitch knows that he is scared of death taking Morrie, so scared that he dies almost anything to remember him. He knows that he is not ready to say goodbye. He knows that he is in a queue of people that Morrie has changed but it feels like his death is impacting him the most. If Morrie was not dying, Mitch would have never come to visit him, let alone record their talks. One more way that Morrie's death affected Mitch is when he dies.
Mitch Albom’s writing is very autobiographical. He takes life lessons he learns from great minds and turns them into easy read novels so he can help people who need to hear them. Morrie may have died, but it lead to Mitch stopping writing a sports column and start teaching people. An action that is great appreciated by all who read his
I have been in ballparks for 17 years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans.” Moreover, Gehrig did not look to instigate misery out of his audience. Gehrig did not need sensitivity from his circumstance. Truth be told, Lou Gehrig did not specify his illness, particularly and somewhat centered around the positive moments that he had encountered for the duration of his life. He acknowledges what is transpiring.
Now, Mitch cared too much about work when he should have cared about his family, girlfriend, and Morrie. But, Morrie teaches Mitch that there are more important things to life than working. This is where Morrie’s death comes into play.
Somehow they get onto the topic of love which begins a long discussion of they think love is. Out of the four of them, the narrator 's friend, Mel McGinnis, a cardiologist, is having a discussion with his wife, Terri, about her ex husband. Mel is explaining his opinion on Terri’s past relationship and how what her and her ex had wasn’t love after Terri explains that her ex was extremely abusive and showed his love by dragging terri around on the floor screaming “I love you bitch”. Terri however truly believes that her ex loved her, from this the reader can tell that since Terri was in an abusive relationship that her perception on love might distorted. Even though Terri’s ex abused her, she revealed she still felt sympathy for him when mentioning his attempts at suicide; “He shot himself in the mouth.
The short story “What We Talk about When We Talk about Love” by Raymond Carver is about four friends- Laura, Mel, Nick, and Terri, gathering on a table and having a conversation. As they start to drink, the subject abruptly comes to “love.” Then, the main topic of their conversation becomes to find the definition of love, in other word to define what exactly love means. However, at the end, they cannot find out the definition of love even though they talk on the subject for a day long. Raymond Carver in “What We Talk about When We Talk about Love” illustrates the difficulty of defining love by using symbols such as heart, gin, and the sunlight.
An article listed by New York Times Explains, “Chances of receiving this disease is 1-1000” (Schwartz 1). This disease is very rare. Instead of acting in a way to scare the audience of this disease, Morrie uses this experience to teach others to view life in a different manner. Mitch eventually came in contact with Morrie and they communicated every Tuesday until the day Morrie died, and each day Mitch grew as a person, changed his perspective on life, and benefited from Morrie’s life lessons. In the story “Tuesdays With Morrie” Mitch Albom uses flashbacks and Imagery to Illustrate that life shouldn’t be put to waste, but lived to the fullest.
In this heartfelt speech, Lou Gehrig expresses his gratitude for all of the positive things that have occured in his life, despite his recent diagnosis of ALS, in order to convey that he is still lucky even though he is now unable to play baseball. Of course the speaker of this speech is Lou Gehrig, who begins by addressing his fans because he wants to start by thanking them all for the good they have put into his life. He states his argument right away by saying that he
