Tuesdays with Morrie: Chapter 22–Afterword

by Mitch Albom
In this work of nonfiction, Mitch Albom reconnects with a favorite college professor and learns valuable lessons in the last months of the elderly scholar's life.

Here are links to our lists for the book: Chapters 1–7, Chapters 8–15, Chapters 16–21, Chapter 22–Afterword
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. stoic
    seeming unaffected by pleasure or pain; impassive
    And then the normally stoic anchor added this: “If you don’t want to do it, Morrie, it’s okay. I’ll come up and say good-bye anyhow.”
  2. mantra
    a commonly repeated word or phrase
    He took a breath, then added his mantra: “Love each other or die.”
  3. vengeance
    harming someone in retaliation for something they have done
    “Mitch,” he said, returning to the subject of forgiveness. “There is no point in keeping vengeance or stubbornness.
  4. reconcile
    bring into consonance or accord
    Over the years, I met Norman a few times and he always tried to reconcile, but I didn’t accept it.
  5. ultimately
    as the end result of a succession or process
    If we know, in the end, that we can ultimately have that peace with dying, then we can finally do the really hard thing.
  6. nurture
    help develop; help grow
    You live on — in the hearts of everyone you have touched and nurtured while you were here.
  7. fleeting
    lasting for a markedly brief time
    I like to think it was a fleeting moment of satisfaction for my dear old professor: he had finally made me cry.
  8. thesis
    a treatise advancing a point of view resulting from research
    This book was largely Morrie’s idea. He called it our “final thesis.”
  9. meander
    move or cause to move in a winding or curving course
    As I meandered through, hearing Morrie’s voice again, I wondered if I would happen upon something that would ring a new chime, something I could share here that would make fresh sense given all that has happened.
  10. harmonious
    existing together in agreement
    “However, this is too harmonious, grand, and overwhelming a universe to believe that it’s all an accident.”
  11. reincarnation
    embodiment in a new form
    The same day that Morrie spoke of life after death, he shared his reincarnation wish, saying that if he could come back as anything, he’d like to be a gazelle.
  12. preoccupation
    the mental state of being obsessed by something
    Perhaps his ravaging disease stripped him of distractions, erased the kind of preoccupation with daily details that absorb the rest of us, allowed him to be “fully present.”
  13. memoir
    an account of the author's personal experiences
    The truth is, the book initially had a hard time finding a home — numerous publishers were uninterested in it; one even told me I had no idea what a memoir was.
  14. dogged
    stubbornly unyielding
    I was trying to help Morrie pay his medical bills. As such, I was more dogged and less deterred. I kept going until I found a publisher.
  15. sentiment
    a personal belief or judgment
    It certainly has made me agree with his sentiment: the universe is indeed too grand and harmonious to believe it’s all an accident.
Created on Sun Nov 29 19:41:23 EST 2015 (updated Thu Jun 26 11:13:14 EDT 2025)

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