Whenever I travel, I always have a book or two with me. Often, I also spot new books at the airport, waiting for my flight.
The first time I saw the book The Last Lecture was years ago. I came across it at an airport shop. It was an intriguing title. I carried the book around while I continued browsing, picking up snacks for the long flight home. In the end, I put it back on the stacks.
I wasn’t ready to read it.
Recently, I came across it again. I did buy it this time though I didn’t read it right away. It sat on my shelves among many other unopened books.
A couple nights ago, I picked it up for something to read in my bath. I am now more than halfway through.
The Last Lecture is given by professors who ponder what they would say at the end of their lives. For Randy Pausch it would his actual last lecture, having been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer that had then spread to his liver. Dr Pausch passed away July 25 2008 (here is the dedication from the university).
The book itself is not the lecture he gave at Carnegie Mellon on September 18 2007. It is his journey leading to delivering it, as he processed his mortality and legacy.
Weighty topics and something we come to contemplate at some point. Listen to his lecture. Read the book The Last Lecture. He was first of all a great storyteller and he was funny. And I learned a lot, about Disney, NASA, ETC (Entertainment Technology Centre that he and drama professor Don Marinelli set up together), among other things, and picked up many nuggets of wisdom and fundamentals that he said he got from his father and mentors like Coach Graham.
Dr Pausch named his lecture “Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”. He didn’t want to talk about death or dying or cancer. This lecture was also a way for his very young kids to know their dad a bit more.
What would your Last Lecture be?
Reading this book also got me thinking about what I would say as my own Last Lecture. If I would write my own eulogy, what would I say? This is often suggested as an exercise of self-love and self-acknowledgement. At the Death Doula training I completed, we also discussed hosting your own funeral/wake.
We have had so many moments, all leading up to this point in our lives, that we may have forgotten or discounted. We may have assigned them less value because in the eyes of those around us they seemed unimportant. Or we may have given far too much credence and weight to something that was meaningful for others, but not for ourselves. At what point do we realize how conditioned we have been, and how much we have turned away from what’s natural and true for us, in order to fit into a world we’ve been taught we must belong in?
I don’t know what would be my Last Lecture or my eulogy. Do you?
Photo: Northern California Beach