How It All Goes Down
The Orientation
- Mitch is driving to Morrie's house in a rental car. He's on the phone with a work call and mentions that his return flight is in a few hours. In other words, this is a short trip.
- When he sees Morrie in his wheelchair he freezes—Morrie's much older and weaker than he was sixteen years ago.
- Morrie sees him and Mitch procrastinates on the phone; he admits that his old self would have run to give Morrie a hug right away.
- Five minutes later, Mitch emerges from the car and hugs Morrie. Morrie will not let him go and calls him his old friend, saying, "you've come back at last" (5.15).
- Mitch does some quick soul searching and feels guilty because he knows he's a far cry from his college self.
- They sit down to lunch and a housekeeper serves them food, with a side of medicine for Morrie.
- Morrie presents Mitch with a question: Would he like to know what it's like to die?
- And so begins the final class that we heard about at the very beginning of Chapter 1.
- Flashback to freshman year: Mitch is a year younger than the other freshmen, which he tries to make up for by acting tough. Morrie doesn't care about this, though, which puts young Mitch at ease; he signs up for more classes with Morrie since he's an easy grader.
- Mitch calls Morrie Coach, and Morrie says that since he's the coach, Mitch has to be the player. They have lunch together, and Mitch is amused by Morrie's dynamic personality.