Mitch Albom

Sometimes stories meet at corners and sometimes they cover one another completely, like stones beneath a river.

How Do PEOPLE choose their final words? Do they realize their gravity? Are they fated to be wise?

The last class of my old professor’s life had only one student.

I was the student.

ses on the bri

The class met on Tuesdays.

were expected to respond to questions, and you were expected to pose questions of your own. You were also required to perform physical tasks now and then

"Mitch, you are one of the good ones," he says, admiring the briefcase. Then he hugs me. I feel his thin arms around my back. I am taller than he is, and when he holds me, I feel awkward, older, as if I were the parent and he were the child. He asks if I will stay in touch, and without hesitation I say, "Of course."

My old professor, meanwhile, was stunned by the normalcy of the day around him. Shouldn't the world stop? Don't they know what has happened to me?

But the world did not stop, it took no notice at all

But my old professor had made a profound decision, one he began to construct the day he came out of the doctor's office with a sword hanging over his head. Do I wither up and disappear, or do I make the best of my time left? he had asked himself.

He would not wither. He would not be ashamed of dying.

remembered graduation day, the briefcase, his tears at my departure, and I swallowed because I knew, deep down, that I was no longer the good, gift-bearing student he remembered.

I only hoped that, for the next few hours, I could fool him.