"Let's begin with this idea," Morrie said.  "Everybody knows they're going to die, but nobody believes it.

Here in Morrie's office, life went on one precious day at a time.  Now we sat together, a few feet from the newest addition to the house:  an oxygen machine.  On some nights, when he couldn't get enough air to swallow, Morrie attached the long plastic tubing to his nose, clamping on his nostrils like a leech.  I hated the idea of Morrie connected to a machine of any kind, and I tried not to look at it as Morrie spoke.

"Everybody 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.

Morrie borrowed freely from all religions.  He was born Jewish, but became an agnostic when he was a teenager, partly because of all that had happened to him as a child.  He enjoyed some of the philosophies of Buddhism and Christianity, and he still felt at home, culturally, in Judaism.  He was a religious mutt, which made him even more open to the students he taught over the years.  And the things he was saying in his final months on earth seemed to transcend all religious differences.  Death has a way of doing that.

"The truth is, Mitch," he said, "once you learn how to die, you learn how to live."

I nodded.

"I'm going to say it again," he said.  "Once you learn how to die, you learn how to live."  He smiled, and I realized what he was doing.  He was making sure I absorbed this point, without embarrassing me by asking.  It was part of what made him a good teacher.

Why is it so hard to think about dying? I asked.

"Because," Morrie continued, "most of us all walk around as if we're sleepwalking.  We really don't experience the world fully, because we're half-asleep, doing things we automatically think we have to do."

And facing death changes all that?

"Oh, yes.  You strip away all that stuff and you focus on the essentials.  When you realize you are going to die, you see everything much differently."

He sighed.  "Learn how to die and you learn how to live."

I noticed that he quivered now when he moved his hands.  His glasses hung around his neck, and when he lifted them to his eyes, they slid around his temples, as if he were trying to put them on someone else in the dark.  I reached over to help guide them onto his ears.

"Thank you," Morrie whispered.  He smiled when my hand brushed up against his head.  The slightest human contact was immediate joy.

"Mitch.  Can I tell you something?"

Of course, I said.

"You might not like it."

Why not?

"Well, the truth is, if you really listen to that bird on your shoulder, if you accept that you can die at any time--then you might not be as ambitious as you are."

I forced a small grin.

"The things you spend so much time on--all this work you do--might not seem as important.  You might have to make room for some more spiritual things."

Spiritual things?

"You hate that word, don't you?  'Spiritual.'  You think it's touchy-feely stuff."

Well, I said.

He tried a wink, a bad try, and I broke down and laughed.

"Mitch," he said, laughing along, "even I don't know what 'spiritual development' really means.  But I do know we're deficient in some way.  We are too involved in materialistic things, and they don't satisfy us.  The loving relationships we have, the universe around us, we take these things for granted."

He nodded toward the window with the sunshine streaming in.  "You see that?  You can go out there, outside, any time.  You can run up and down the block and go crazy.  I can't do that.  I can't go out.  I can't run.  I can't be out there without fear of getting sick.  But you know what?  I appreciate that window more than you do."

Appreciate it?

"Yes.  I look out that window every day.  I notice the change in the trees, how strong the wind is blowing.  It's as if I can see time actually passing though that windowpane.  Because I know my time is almost done, I am drawn to nature like I'm seeing it for the first time."

He stopped, and for a moment we both just looked out the window.  I tried to see what he saw.  I tried to see time and seasons, my life passing in slow motion.  Morrie dropped his head slightly and curled it toward his shoulder.

"Is it today, little bird?" he asked.  "Is it today?"

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