Small towns are like metronomes; with the slightest flick, the beat changes. - Mitch Albom

He tells my parents how I took every class he taught. He tells them, “You have a special boy here.” Embarrassed, I look at my feet. Before we leave, I hand my professor a present, a tan briefcase with his initials on the front. I bought this the day before at a shopping mall. I didn’t want to forget him. Maybe I didn’t want him to forget me.

“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.” When he steps back, I see that he is crying.

Everyone knows they re going to die,' he said again, 'but nobody believes it. If we did, we would do things differently.

Most of us all walk around as if we're sleepwalking. We really don't experience the world fully, because we're half-asleep, doing things we automatically think we have to do.