Mitch Albom

And he and I had been extremely close in college.

I mean, I had taken every class he offered.

I majored in sociology because of him.

I wrote my honors thesis with him.

And I had always promised that I would stay in touch.

And then as I became this ambitious animal...

I broke that promise for 16 years.

And all of a sudden, here he is on television telling an interviewer that he's about to die.

And so I called him up, thinking that I would just ease my conscience with a phone call.

And he kind of guilted me into coming to visit him once.

So I thought, well, I'll just go once and ease my conscience that way.

And when I saw him in person, it was...

It was so moving to see, you know, how he had been stripped of so many things by the disease.

He couldn't walk anymore.

He could barely lift a piece of tomato up to his mouth.

It took him a minute and a half to chew a single piece of tomato.

He was having trouble breathing.

But he seemed so content with how he had lived his life and so interested in exploring dying.

And he had this amazing attitude about life.

When I went home that night, I said,