The Last Lecture

To millions who have watched him on the Internet or on Oprah Winfrey's TV show, Randy Pausch is the 47-year-old professor dying of cancer who inspired them with his “last lecture,” about achieving childhood dreams and living with integrity and joy. His neighbors in a Virginia suburb know him as the guy biking around the streets for exercise while chattering into a cell-phone headset.

That's what the Carnegie Mellon University computer science professor did to expand his 76-minute talk into a book without taking time that he doesn't have away from the people for whom the book was intended: his 3 children, all under 7 years of age, that he won't be around to help his wife, Jai, raise. I clearly remember watching his lecture on Oprah --so much of it was inspiring, moving, exciting, stirring, rousing; but also sad in a sense. The Professor was dying. After all, what do you say in a “last lecture?”

Pausch found out in September 2006 that he had pancreatic cancer, an especially deadly cancer with few treatment options. Last August, he learned the cancer had spread. Doctors told him he had 3 to 6 months live. He recently suffered heart and kidney failure. He's in pain all the time and he hasn't been strong enough to ride his bike. He's stopped chemotherapy and spends many days in bed. I just bought the book, the same size as the book Tuesdays with Morrie, by Mitch Abloom.  It arrived this morning -- 266 pages of discussions about enabling the dreams of others -- primarily his 3 children.

To read online, see Randy Pausch's blog and health report and  "The Last Lecture."

Have you read the book or listened to the lecture?