I look back sometimes at the person I was before Irediscovered my old professor. I want to talk to that per-son. I want to tell him what to look out for, what mis-takes to avoid. I want to tell him to be more open, toignore the lure of advertised values, to pay attention whenyour 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 airplaneand visit a gentle old man in West Newton, Massachu-setts, sooner rather than later, before that old man getssick and loses his ability to dance.
I know I cannot do this. None of us can undo whatwe‘ve done, or relive a life already recorded. But if Profes-sor Morris Schwartz taught me anything at all, it was this:there is no such thing as "too late" in life. He was chang-ing until the day he said good-bye.
Not long after Morrie‘s death, I reached my brotherin Spain. We had a long talk. I told him I respected hisdistance, and that all I wanted was to be in touch—in thepresent, not just the past--to hold him in my life as muchas he could let me.
"You‘re my only brother," I said. "I don‘t want tolose you. I love you."
I had never said such a thing to him before.
A few days later, I received a message on my fax ma-chine. It was typed in the sprawling, poorly punctuated,
all-cap-letters fashion that always characterized mybrother‘s words.
"HI I‘VE JOINED THE NINETIES!" it began. Hewrote a few little stories, what he‘d been doing that week,
a couple of jokes. At the end, he signed off this way:I HAVE HEARTBURN AND DIAHREA AT THEMOMENT–LIFE‘S A BITCH. CHAT LATER?
[signed] SORE TUSH.
I laughed until there were tears in my eyes.