When a dying professor’s Painted on the wall of a child’s wife, Jai, dealt with the awful loss of knowing he bedroom in the US state of is a little would not grow old with her nor see their three hand-drawn rocket ship complete with a fiery little children grow up. blast of rocket fuel. It sits amid sketches of a “It pains me to think that when they’re older last speech submarine, a quadratic equation and the outline they won’t have a father,” Pausch says. “When of an elevator, and is headed where all little kids’ I cry in the shower, I’m not usually thinking ‘I rocket ships should be headed – straight to the won’t get to see them do this’, or ‘I won’t get to was posted on stars and beyond. see them do that’. I am thinking about the kids The artist was eight-year-old Randy Pausch, a not having a father. That’s what chews me up little boy with a list of big dreams. inside when I let it.” These included authoring a World Book After the tears, the professor decided on a the internet Encyclopedia entry, being Captain Kirk, playing plan. He would approach his impending death in the NFL, winning a stuffed animal, becoming like any engineering problem – albeit a problem a Disney imagineer and floating in zero gravity. with an imperfect outcome and few resources to Over the years, he has found a way to achieve fix it. He would put his energies into helping his it became a them all, in part or in whole – from getting a family cope after his death. cameo in the next movie to riding on “The metaphor I’ve used is that someone’s NASA’s zero-gravity “vomit comet” plane. going to push my family off a cliff real soon and And, as a computer-science professor and I won’t be there to catch them and that breaks worldwide virtual-reality pioneer, Randy Pausch has also my heart,” Pausch told US TV journalist Diane taught new generations to dream. The bright- Sawyer. “But I have some time to sew some nets est future innovators and animators would sit to cushion the fall and that seems the best use in his class at Carnegie Mellon University in of my time. So I can curl up in a ball and cry or phenomenon , absorbing his high-octane enthusi- I can get to work on the nets.” asm, irrepressible grin and penetrating stare. Those nets included finding a way for his two With Jim Carrey looks and humour, plus a little sons and baby daughter to remember and and a No. 1 twist of Yoda wisdom and a healthy hint of learn from him long after he’s gone. nerd, Pausch earned a reputation as a showman, So when he was asked to give a Last Lecture – a thanks in part to beating working VCRs with a series by professors at Carnegie Mellon where sledgehammer to teach his new students not to they pass on their wisdom as if it really was their best-selling create things that will frustrate users. final talk – he agreed, keen for the chance to But that’s the Randy Pausch of yesterday. Today pass on his inspirations and passions. He called the 47-year-old is a different man. Thinner. it “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”. Greyer. Dying. “I have lived out my dreams in great measure book, as In late 2006, Pausch was diagnosed with one because of things I was taught by all sorts of of the most deadly diseases, . extraordinary people along the way,” Pausch He did not have long to live. In an instant his says. “If I was able to tell my story with a whole world was kicked off its axis. passion, I felt my lecture might help others find millions took First came the shock, pain and tears, as he and a path to fulfilling their own dreams.” to heart his advice about living life and dreams. Story SHERYL-LEE KERR FAMOUS LAST WORDS 23

Jeffrey Zaslow, a columnist for The Wall Street ning to go home and spend whatever time he and say ‘OK, gotta go’, as soon as he got back to Journal, got wind of the lecture and gave him a had left with his kids. To him, that was it.” the house, even if we were in the middle of talk- call. “He was very funny on the phone – he was Zaslow drove home, wrote up his Wall Street ing about something. We just picked it up next engaging,” Zaslow recalls. “He was driving and Journal column, and posted a short video clip day, because he needed to get back to his kids.” I said ‘Randy, you wanna pull over? You might from the speech with it. To everyone’s surprise The book on The Last Lecture, which bears the get into an accident’. He said ‘Well, if I get into it became an instant sensation. Email after email same title, shot to No. 1 on The New York Times an accident and die, what’s the difference?’.” flooded into the newspaper. bestseller list this month. Zaslow decided to drive the five hours from Then a full video of the speech went up on All the fuss came as a huge surprise for the Detroit to see Pausch speak. YouTube and it became a phenomenon – well man at the centre of it. “I am so glad I did – it was amazing being over six million people viewed it in its various “He didn’t expect any of this,” Zaslow says there. It was electric,” he says. online incarnations, popularity which contin- with a laugh. “Now he’s sort of used to being The Last Lecture was on September 18, 2007, ues to this day. famous, but in the early days he was befuddled and covered everything from Pausch’s boyhood “The phenomenon is unabated,” says Professor almost. You know he’s very smart and he’s very dreams and his life advice, to how to handle Gabriel Robins, a friend and colleague who was self-assured – but he still was surprised.” adversity. He showed images of his tumour-filled mentored by Pausch at the Zaslow believes Pausch’s approach to death scans to get the “elephant in the room” out of in the 1990s. “I put one of the clips on the web, contributed to his fame. the way and dropped his lanky frame to the and one of them is getting close to 100,000 hits “It’s like watching a man dying and living floor to do a few robust push-ups, should anyone a day and growing.” simultaneously,” he says. “We don’t think of think of pitying “the dying guy”. But the question many are asking is why. death like that. When you think of a dying For 76 minutes, in a speech never intended “The speech was a perfect storm of several person they’re laying in bed dying. They’re not for public viewing, he offered his truths with things – one is the pathos and gravitas of the doing push-ups and telling jokes. humour, stories of the heroes and villains in his situation – the man is dying,” Professor Robins “And so that just resonated with people and it life and his inspirations and exasperations. says. “But even if you remove the fact of the became a sharing thing. It was people sharing from far left: Pausch urged parents to enable their children’s impending demise from it all, it would still be it with each other – that’s how it got started. randy pausch dreams, to let them, as he was allowed, to paint entertaining. People feel like they found him and created him presents a Lecture; spaceships and equations on their bedroom “It’s incredible. His legacy is that he’s making and they really did.” walls if they want. people think and re-evaluate their own lives and Professor Robins says the speech made many randy, the dreamer, He told the crowd of more than 400 friends, priorities and relationships with other people. who saw it look at their own mortality. aged four; feeding colleagues and students to put what matters He’s a catalyst.” “In some sense he is not saying anything daughter chloe; first. And then, his eyes red-rimmed, he had a So strong was the interest in the lecture that new,” he says. “He’s just putting it into focus HOLDING chloe and birthday cake wheeled out for his wife and asked publishers got into a bidding war for Pausch’s and bringing attention to it and forcing people sons logan AND dylan; the crowd to sing to her. story, reportedly paying up to an astonishing to kind of think about their own lives through last halloween, the Jai hugged him fiercely and whispered two $US6.7 million for it. his situation. WHOLE FAMILY out to words into his ear: “Don’t die.” Zaslow co-wrote the book with Pausch, inter- “If you think about it, his situation isn’t that prove chemo is “The speech was painful and wonderful all viewing him 53 times for an hour at a time as different to any of ours. We’re all going to die, no match for at the same time for everyone in the room,” Pausch cycled about for exercise. we all know it. We’re all terminal cases. He’s the incredibles, in Zaslow says. “We knew we’d seen something “He thought he wasn’t going to see a word forcing us to look at that and think about it incredibly special. I said goodbye to him on the of it,” Zaslow says. “He thought he’d be done and ask, if we only had months, not years, what costumes pausch sidewalk outside afterwards and he was plan- (dead) by January. So he would get off that bike would you do? Would you still do your job sewed himself.

Randy’s tips for life Dream big. Earnest Don’t Treat the Don’t Look for Watch Be the Get Handwrite Fuel your is better complain, disease, obsess over the best in what they first people’s thankyou kids’ dreams than hip just work not the what people everybody. do. penguin. attention. notes. too. (when hiring harder. symptom. think about Almost For when my someone’s That’s the They will people). Take a part- you. everybody daughter’s got to jump first step remember Hip is short time job to pay it’s really has a good dating: in the deep in solving you. And it’s term, earnest off the credit inefficient. side. Just keep just ignore end first. an ignored just the nice is long term. card, rather waiting. it’ll everything Celebrate problem. thing to do. than dealing come out. they say innovative with the debt and only pay “glorious stress. attention to failure”. what they do. 24 features BEST STUDIO ITALIA SUIT OFFER IN PERTH

tomorrow, next week, next month, if you only he updates friends and fans with regularly on he’s been making plans for his wife, too. “Jai had six months left? Or would you do some- his website, along with his latest health news. loves to have fresh flowers in the house,” he thing different? Would you just pick up and go “He’s not doing great, you know,” Zaslow says says. So he’s arranged for weekly deliveries for a and live your dreams or gather your loved ones softly. “He’s got heart and kidney failure issues. I year after he dies. around you? saw him 3½ weeks ago. He’s slower. He’s not the The 52nd bouquet will come with a note “He makes us prioritise. That’s why it’s so guy doing push-ups any more. He’s not the guy attached: “Now it’s time for a new guy.” intriguing because everyone’s beginning to on the bike, pedalling, either. It’s sad. For the man who began life with so many think like that. He’s gotten tens of thousands “In recent weeks he’s spent up to 20 hours a big dreams of his own, it seems almost obvious of emails – people have written to him saying day in bed, sometimes. The world is going to what Pausch’s final dream would be. ‘After I heard your lecture I changed my life and remember him from that push-up scene, but “Probably that his children will lead produc- left my abusive relationship’ or some people that’s not who he is any more. So he’s got to tive and meaningful lives and achieve their own have said to him ‘I contemplated suicide. After rest, and that’s brought on by the chemo. dreams. Everything he has done has been work- I heard your lecture, I called it off and now I’m “While he’s resting the tumours are growing. ing towards that goal,” says Professor Robins. OK’. And on and on and on. If, in three or four weeks he can have this new “But he’s very careful not to pigeonhole them “So he’s become a catalyst in thousands of peo- treatment he’ll do it, but he’s a realist, so . . .” into telling them what their dreams should be. ple’s lives which are changing dramatically.” Zaslow trails off. “He’s said himself that the worst thing a par- Other changes were not so dramatic. When Which brings us back to Pausch’s tricky engi- ent can do is force their kids to live the parent’s Oprah Winfrey did a follow-up to an earlier neering problem. His imperfect solutions with own dreams for them to be a doctor or lawyer story on Pausch, she showed family after family limited resources are being put in place now, or whatever. inspired to allow their children to paint on their piece by piece. “Being a professor, he sees in his office on a bedroom walls, Pausch style. He has spoken to others who have lost parents daily basis the train wrecks of children who Yet amid all the outpourings of positive emails young to learn what made a difference in help- desperately are trying to please their own also came the hate mail. It has forced Pausch to ing them cope. parents and he doesn’t want to do that for his unlist his phone number and hide his email and He will leave his children a bagload of letters own children.” home address. and emails from those uplifted by him. And So his last dream would be that his children “Religious fanatics say to him ‘Why didn’t of course they will have his book and a visual have the freedom to pursue their own dreams? you mention Jesus Christ our Lord?’,” Professor record of his most famous lecture. To point their own rocket ships to the stars? Robins says. “That lecture was in some sense a time capsule, “Yes,” Professor Robins says. “To follow their “They say ‘You’re going to burn in hell and a way to bottle himself for posterity for his chil- dreams, whatever they may be.” your kids are going to burn in hell too, and their dren so one day when they’re old enough they flesh is going to be burnt off their body’. can listen to the lecture,” Professor Robins says. To watch The Last Lecture, go to: “Strangely enough, these religious fanatics “And he told his publisher he doesn’t really www..com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo For the Diane think they’re doing the Lord’s work. It’s very care about any but the first three copies of his Randy Pausch’s website, with regular health Sawyer interview hard to argue with these people.” book – the first three copies will go to his chil- updates: http://download.srv.cs.cmu.edu/ with Randy As for Pausch, he is on borrowed time now. dren: ‘If other people want to read it and get ~pausch Pausch, go to Eight months ago, doctors gave him just three something out of it, then more power to them, More resources: www.thelastlecture.com to six months of good health. He has undergone but that’s not why I’m doing it’.” Pancreatic cancer: www.pancreaticcancer. www.perthnow. chemotherapy and is trying to rest so he can In an article for Brown Alumni Magazine at net.au com.au begin an experimental vaccine, details of which , Rhode Island, Pausch reveals The Last Lecture, Hachette Australia, $29.99.

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street. Go out and The only thing worse than Honesty is not If you can’t Brick walls arian. ask. Each of us randy fulfils his I enabled a do for you can count no apology. only morally or won’t are there to Give back just ASK that must decide student’s others what on is what you Most people right, it’s also sort mail, show how to the question. “Am I a fun- win-a-soft-toy dream; dream way somebody did bring with will be efficient. for example, badly we want community More often loving Tigger gabriel robins with for you. you. Lying is where is the something. or am I a sad- back when he appreciative – you have than you’d randy and dylan; needed it, and of a good ineffective proof you can respons- suspect, the sack Eeyore”. now I need it apology. If long term. do anything? ibilities as answer you Pick a camp. the last lecture book. Exclusive offer to PLATINUM MENSWEAR he’s enabling not, don’t let well as get is “Sure”. mine. it eat you. rights. 633 Hay Street Mall, Perth (Opposite David Jones) 08 9221 0084