Former Carnegie-Mellon University Professor Randy Pausch died today, July 25, at age 47 from pancreatic cancer. That simple statement of fact does not begin to tell of his legacy to not only cancer patients, but any and all of us who get too caught up in daily life to really live our lives to the fullest.
Professor Pausch delivered what has become known as his "Last Lecture" in which he talked about his terminal illness, but in so doing celebrated his life and that he had accomplished so many of his dreams, from writing an article for World Book encyclopedia, to working on a project with the Walt Disney Co., to being an extra in a "Star Trek" movie. The "Last Lecture" is inspiring, uplifting and powerful - if you have not heard it, please go to this link to the Carnegie-Mellon website.
A couple of key lines from the "Last Lecture":
"I don't know how to not have fun. I'm dying and I'm having fun. And I'm going to keep having fun every day I have left. Because there's no other way to play it."
"We don't beat the reaper by living longer, we beat the reaper by living well and living fully."
I sat in tears the first time I watched Professor Pausch's lecture, and have done so in more than a couple of subsequent viewings. You see, his experience rang so very true to me, because I nearly died in 2003 from complications of acute gallstone pancreatitis. I spent 13 weeks in two different hospitals and many weeks, including 6 ERCP procedures, in follow-up outpatient care before I was declared "cured." Dr. Paul Kearney, the surgeon who saved my life, told me in our final doctor-patient visit that my case was in the worst 5% of pancreatitis cases and that over 50% of those do not survive. He then looked me squarely in the eye and said, " I have no scientific explanation for why you made it." I suspect being on a large number of prayer lists had quite a bit to do with it. It was a life-changing experience and continues to be a substantial part of who I am and my outlook on life.
What I came out of this ordeal with were three things: (1) a renewed faith in God and in the power of prayer; (2) a renewed appreciation and love for my wife, my sister and my parents, who stood with me through all the darkest hours; and (3) a determination to some day reach the end of my life with no regrets for having not tried to do the things of which I had always dreamed. Number 3 is why, at my age, I have taken up writing with a vengeance, started Civil War reenacting, taken my cooking to a higher level, and am wholly determined to squeeze the juice out of life to the extent I can do so.
But the point of Dr. Pausch's lecture, and my point, is also borne out in the lyric to a recent country song by Tim McGraw, "Live Like You Were Dyin' ":
"I was finally the husband,
"That most the time I wasn’t.
"An' I became a friend a friend would like to have.
"And all of a sudden goin' fishin’,
"Wasn’t such an imposition,
"And I went three times that year I lost my Dad.
"Well, I finally read the Good Book,
"And I took a good long hard look,
"At what I'd do if I could do it all again,
"Some day, I hope you get the chance,
"To live like you were dyin'."
Like tomorrow was a gift,
And you got eternity,
To think about what you’d do with it.
An' what did you do with it?
An' what can I do with it?
An' what would I do with it?
We are all only on this mortal coil for a relatively miniscule period of time. Our lives are before us but can be taken away in an instance. There is so much available from family, friends, our faith in God, and the world that surrounds us but which we often ignore in our haste to meet our daily schedules. I hope we all get the chance to live life like we're dying - not due to cancer or any other form of premature death, but because we can seize life and get all from it that this world has to offer. Much of what we can get from life has to do with what we give to life - to others, and to the world at large. As Dr. Pausch said, we beat the Reaper by living well and living fully, no matter how long on Earth we have.
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