When Isaac ‘Marty’ Morris died June 27, 2014, after a nine-month battle with cancer, there was not only grief at his funeral and visitation, there was whiskey.
Pastor Tom Christell said they were looking on the bright side of life. They were celebrating the life of Morris.
As part of that celebration, some people drank a shot glass full of Jamison’s Irish whiskey around his casket before he was buried at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield.
Morris, 65, was an adjunct philosophy professor at Lincoln Land Community College for more than 30 years. He helped LLCC develop its first online philosophy courses and its first online philosophy degree.
“I remember I used to joke that I needed to recruit additional people (to help Morris), because I said, ‘If Marty gets hit by a bus, our (philosophy) degree goes away,’” said David Laubersheimer, who recently retired as the Dean of Lincoln Land’s Arts and Humanities department.
“I remember the day he came in to tell me that he had been diagnosed with cancer. He said, ‘I got hit by a bus.’… That was Marty’s sense of humor.”
Laubersheimer said he and Morris were close friends, and they enjoyed Monty Python and discussing philosophy. Laubersheimer also enjoyed Morris’s sense of humor.
To illustrate his sense of humor, Morris was photographed wearing a shirt that read, ‘I’m not dead yet,’ on his first day of chemo. After he died, he wore the same shirt in his casket. But two words were covered up, so the shirt now read, ‘I’m dead.’
Christell, the pastor of Grace Evangelical Church, also gave Morris a shirt that said, ‘I have chemo brain, what’s your excuse?’
Christell said the shirt was dedicated to some of the things Morris said due to his chemo.
Christell said Morris, though, always found the positives of life, even during his last few months.
“He loved life to its fullest,” said Christell, who knew Morris for six years.
In fact, Morris would often joke about these shirts and chemo, despite being told his chemotherapy was not working after two rounds. Since this was the case, he decided to stop chemo and enjoy the remainder of his life.
“He wanted to
have some quality of life that he had left, and the way he handled his own death was amazing,” Laubersheimer said. “Sometimes when people know that they are dying, it can be very difficult for the people around them. And he (Morris) did everything he could to make it not difficult for them (his family). I think everybody would agree with that, including his wife, Carol.”
So Morris planned his own visitation and funeral.
He requested the songs ‘Ave Maria,’ ‘Amazing Grace’ and his favorite, ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’ by Monty Python, to be played.
He also requested only Christell and Laubersheimer to give sermons at his funeral. Morris did not want his family members to speak.
“He wanted the family to be the family,” Christell said.
His ability to love — whether is was his wife or his friend — had no bottom to it.
– Tom Christell
Morris wanted his former colleague Laubersheimer to discuss his relationship with Lincoln Land.
“What I had to say, I wrote from my heart,” Laubersheimer said. “Marty was an extraordinary man. I described him in my eulogy as a renaissance man, and he very much was that. And I loved it that he had just a really warped sense of humor, which I really appreciate.”
“His ability to love — whether it was his wife or his friend or his pastor — had no bottom to it,” Christell said. “It was just an incredible thing, and a lot of it was based on his faith.
When he got sick … I’m sitting there crying, and he’s going, ‘I’m fine I know where I’m going. I know what’s ahead of me.’”
In the years Morris and Christell knew each other, Christell said they became close friends.
They would often have breakfast at Jungle Jim’s in Springfield with their wives. Often times, Christell and Morris would have a drink together. Morris would order his favorite, Jamison’s Irish whiskey.
“My wife says, ‘When Marty laughs, it was one of those deep-in-his-soul laughs that came booming out,’” Christell said. “If you don’t know Marty, you thought it was a fake laugh, which it wasn’t. … He loved life.”
And he did. He enjoyed every minute of his life.
Morris was also well respected by many of his colleagues at Lincoln Land.
“I think he helped me understand patience better,” said Terry Logsdon, a full-time philosophy professor at Lincoln Land who knew Morris for 12 years. “Marty was very patient, and we would have discussions not only about philosophy and religion, but also about teaching. And Marty had been doing it (teaching) longer than I have, even though he retired from a position with the state government.”
Morris, who graduated from MacMurray College in 1972 and got his master’s from Butler University, retired from the state in 2008 after 30 years with the Illinois Department of Insurance.
Because he had all of this experience working for the state, Logsdon said, “I don’t think he was really reluctant to make judgments of people. He was really expansive in his acceptance of people, and I think some of that — maybe not enough — rubbed off on me.”
Morris was, in fact, the recipient of the 2009 Outstanding Adjunct of the Year for the impact he made at LLCC.
“That’s really saying something, and, boy, did he deserve it,” Logsdon said. “He did so much for this school and certainly for the philosophy program. … I mean a very capable guy and well respected by his colleagues and students.”
“He was a great colleague. He was a very good teacher,” Laubersheimer said. “He was a very good friend, and I for one am going to miss him.”
When Morris found out he had cancer last December, Tim McKenzie, a philosophy and journalism professor at Lincoln Land, was asked to take over Morris’s online classes last spring.
“Although I’ve taught online (classes) for several years, I felt like I had a lot to improve, after seeing his detail and thorough work. He had videos, news stories and cartoons throughout,” said McKenzie, who has been teaching for around 10 years. “His use of cartoons and humorous videos showed a guy with a unique sense of humor. I don’t know where he got all of his material, but he clearly had spent a lot of time collecting humor.”
But Morris was more than just a philosopher/professor at Lincoln Land. He wrote two books, the ‘Absence of Goodness’ and ‘Along the River Road’ about murder mysteries in Sangamon County. He also wrote book reviews and blogged about culture for the State Journal-Register.
Outside of work, he loved fishing with his dog, Nike, traveling with his wife and helping his church.
“He was so many things to so many people,” Christell said in his sermon at Morris’s funeral. “He was a brother, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, a true friend. He was a teacher, writer, philosopher, sounding board, liked to joke. He was a wearer of many hats.”
He said Morris “could have cared less” about what he was wearing. He cared more about helping his church. Not only did he often replace
Chirstell at weekend services, but he was also elected to serve on the church council at the Grace Lutheran Church. He then helped the church develop a mobile-friendly website.
“Even when he was sick, he was pushing me to get that website down,” Christell said. “I’d say, ‘Marty, I don’t have time. I need to be dealing with you right now.’ But he didn’t want that.”
He did not want people’s sympathy for his health.
When I was dealing with a problem that I didn’t want to share with everyone, I could go and talk with Marty. So he became … a ‘father confessor.’
– Christell
In fact, Christell and Laubersheimer were in France when Morris died. And Christell said Morris kept his sense of humor till the day he died.
“Before we left (for France), we talked (Morris and I), and I said, ‘I’m going to France. I can’t just jump across the pond (to see you).’ He said, ‘Put me on ice until you
get back,’ and that’s what we did,” Christell said. “In the long run, it was great for Carol (Morris’s wife). She had time to process everything.”
Christell said Carol Morris is feeling better, since her husband died. But now she is dealing with another issue.
“She says, ‘Now I know why Marty said I better die first, because I wouldn’t understand anything he did with the finances,” Christell said. “She’s getting it all put together.”
But Morris and his “warped” sense of humor will forever be missed by his students, friends, and faculty.
“When I was dealing with a problem that I didn’t want to share with everybody, I could go and talk with Marty, and so he became … a ‘father confessor,’” said Christell. “I could go and talk to him about anything, and it would stay there, so there was a major trust level. Marty was just special that way with a lot of people. He was honest, and he had tremendous integrity with what he did.”
“No matter how alone we feel, no matter how dark the valley into which we have wandered, if we cast our eyes to the Word and realize the truth of what Jesus has wrought through the breaking of bread, we know with the surety of faith that
no matter the seeming desolation in which we wander, we are not alone. … And that is a message that resonates with all humans who face uncertainty, darkness and fear,” Morris said in his last sermon in May. “It certainly goes for me. That is a message of hope; we are not, after all, in the Twilight Zone, but rather in the Hope Zone. For if we have faith in the promises of Christ, we will never walk our road again.”
