Author Mitch Albom chats to Brendan about his friend and mentor Morrie Schwartz and the stage production of Tuesdays With Morrie coming to Dublin; starring Dan Butler and Stephen Jones. Listen back above.

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom describes the author's weekly conversations with his former college professor Morrie Schwartz, in the month’s leading up to Morrie’s death from Motor Neurone disease in 1997. The book sold over 20 million copies and has inspired a TV movie and a stage play. A new production of the play Tuesdays with Morrie is coming to Dublin next month and Mitch spoke to Brendan O’Connor about his friendship with Morrie Schwartz and the impact it continues to have on his life.

At the age of 37, Mitch Albom was a successful, ambitious sports journalist and broadcaster, working 80-hour weeks. He had lost contact with his old college professor Morrie Schwartz; a man he had considered a mentor and a friend. Then one night he saw Morrie on a TV show about ALS/Motor Neurone Disease and he realised his old friend was dying.

Mitch flew from Detroit to Massachusetts to pay Morrie what he thought would be a final visit. After spending several hours talking to the terminally-ill sociology professor, Mitch says he was baffled by the contrast between them:

"You're 37 and you're perfectly healthy and he's 78 and he's dying and he seems happier and more content with his life than you are. There's something the matter with this."

He marvelled at Morrie’s attitude in the face of certain death:

"He never complained. He just talked about all the brilliant thinks he could see as he was dying; people who were coming to visit him and how he was kind of like a leaf at the end of its life that becomes brilliant colours."

Mitch returned the following Tuesday and every other Tuesday until Morrie died some 14 weeks later. The two men began their conversations by catching up and talking about Morrie's illness, but before long it turned into something else, Mitch says:

"Very quickly it evolved into a sort of last class of what's really important in life, once you know you're going to die. Not when you think you're going to die, like we all sort of think one day we are going to die; but when you are looking death in the face."

Morrie was happy and calm in spite of his gradual physical deterioration, Mitch says. But on one occasion, Morrie broke down in tears at news reports of the war in Bosnia; and Mitch wanted to know why it affected him so personally:

"He said 'Mitch, when you're dying, you suddenly have this enormous empathy for anyone else who's suffering and you understand what it means, because you are close to death too.'"

As time went on, Mitch was drawn in by the things that moved Morrie; including his personal regrets. An old friend of Morrie’s, Norman, had died of cancer and Morrie explained how they had lost touch over a stupid argument. Even after Norman reached to him, Morrie berated him for the late apology and they never spoke again. Morrie counselled Mitch to learn from his bitter mistake:

"When you get to where I am, and you will get to where I am, you’re not gonna care who’s right or wrong; you’ll just care that they are there with you. Forgive everybody everything."

Morrie had no fear of dying; but there was one thing that terrified him, as he told his former student - medical expenses. Morrie knew that his family would have to sell their house once he was gone, to pay for his care. The thought of this was unbearable, he said:

"He said 'I’m gonna die twice. Once when I die and once wherever I am, realising that I’m causing my family all this financial distress."

Mitch decided to raise money for Morrie’s care by writing a book about their weekly chats, which became the best-selling Tuesdays with Morrie. He secured a publisher three weeks before Morrie died and was able to give his friend peace in his last days, knowing his family were secure. Mitch confesses this kind of selfless act was not normal for him:

"It was the first time I had really done anything that was just for somebody else and not for me. I was learning right in front of him. Of course It turned out to be the biggest thing that changed my life and it was just done as a labour of love."

Mitch says his life changed from that moment and he went on to found a charity caring for over 60 children in Haiti, which you can hear more about that in the full interview – listen back above.

Mitch says it sounds like a cliché, but he believes that the secret to contentment is to live every day as if it really is your last. He says Morrie put it very simply:

"As Morrie said, if you take every day as if there is a bird on your shoulder and each day you get up, you ask the bird ‘Is today the day I die?’ And every day of your life the answer will be no, except one. But are you prepared, if the bird says, ‘Yes, today is the day you are going to die?’"

Tuesdays with Morrie starring Dan Butler (Bulldog in Frasier) as Morrie and Tallaght actor Stephen Jones (Northern Lights, Love/Hate) as Mitch is at the Gaiety Theatre Dublin from the 16th – 27th of April and the Everyman Theatre in Cork from Tuesday 30th of April to Thursday the 2nd of May.

Listen back to a stimulating mix of news, interviews, reports and discussion from Brendan O’Connor here and on the RTÉ Radio app.

If you’re personally affected by any of the issues raised, go here for information on helplines.