Afternoon Conversations

Recently, one of my best friends had some relatively serious surgery that required him to be out of school for a little over a week. This particular procedure, being very rare, could only be performed by one of three doctors in the nation, so he flew to Philadelphia to have his operation. He returned on a Saturday, I believe, and so the next day I resolved to pay him a visit.

I drove to Starbucks to pick up some coffee for us and a short time later arrived at his house. Surprisingly, as I gathered the various things in my car I was to take inside, he opened the front door to his home. I was hardly across the threshold and putting my things down when he enveloped me in one of the biggest and most meaningful hugs I had received from him in a long time.

Interestingly enough, regardless of the slightly slurred speech and thought process due to his medication, we shared what were most likely the best conversations we had had. I left after several hours and another bear hug with promises to return the next afternoon.

Later, it occurred to me that the visit we had had paralleled strikingly with Mitch Albom's Tuesdays With Morrie. In this documentary, Albom records the words of wisdom he hears from his dying college professor on their weekly Tuesday afternoon visists. My favorite piece of this book, however, is not necessarily a philosophy on life that Morrie delivers to Albom. It was, rather, an observation that Albom made about Morrie's lifestyle. He mentions that while Morrie balances perilously between life and death, he maintains the happiest lifestyle of all people he knows; he refers to it, though I cannot recall the exact phrasing, as Morrie's created cocoon of human activity that denounces forms of communication that lack physical contact. Morrie has instilled in himself the desire for more meaningful conversation and entertainment than the current entertainment world can provide for him, and thus relishes more the philosophies he is able to share directly with others.

When I first read this, I was, of course, greatly affected by the book's messages, but this passage stood out for me in particular. I have come to want that kind of lifestyle more and more since I have read of its possibilities; for me, that is the kind of thing I experienced visiting my recovering friend. We acheived through our talks a deeper understanding of each other that strengthened our relationship tremendously, even though this all happened over only several hours. Through this, I came to the realization that life is much more precious when it is truly lived.