Tonight, a remarkable man wants to talk
to you about your life. We cannot change
the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.
A college professor with a message so
challenging and nourishing, 10 million
people have made the pilgrimage to hear
what he has to say. The critics are your
ones telling you they still love you and care.
All across the nation, people are
saying Randy Pausch taught them to make
braver choices. I realized what an idiot
I was. Change that job, take that trip,
achieve childhood dreams, no matter the
obstacle.
Randy's video inspired me.
He reached me, in Kent, Ohio. So, who is the man
giving what his University called "The
Last Lecture?" The title has a twist. 47
year-old Randy Pausch has fatal cancer,
and it has spread. The doctors told me 3
to 6 months of good health left, that was
a month ago, so you can do the math. A
grim calculation, except this man does
not do grim.
I'm still trying to do one pushup in
honor of your lecture. I don't know how
to not have fun, right? I'm dying and I'm
having fun. Tonight,
one of the most extraordinary people
we have ever met challenges you to see
your life in a new way. You say there is no
evidence and you can't see, but can you
see love, can you see hope? A father, a husband, a
teacher, ready to take you on the journey of your life.
Here now, Diane Sawyer. Good evening, and
welcome to what we think is a truly
special prime time. There is a famous
story in the household of Randy Pausch,
PhD, that his mother jokingly once said,
"My son's a doctor, just not the kind who
helps people." We suspect you'll have a
different view after you spend time with
him tonight. This man, who was told he had
six months to live and has turned
everyday since into a kind of
celebration. He has written a book called
"The Last Lecture," and that's how we first
heard of him. A lecture that found its
way onto the internet entirely by
accident. It was posted for a handful of
people who couldn't be there the day he
spoke. What happened next was a wonder
all its own.
Who would have believed that out there
in the vast clamor of the internet,
those endless videos, all that noise, one
earnest looking professor standing at a
podium could make 10 million people so
far stop and listen? Wait long enough and
people will surprise and impress you.
The last lecture, an annual tradition at
Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh,
a speech on personal philosophy by a
beloved professor like Randy Pausch,
famous for making his students believe
in themselves no matter the obstacles in
their way. The brick walls are there for
a reason, alright?
The brick walls are not there
to keep us out. The brick walls are there
to give us a chance to show how badly we
want something, because the brick walls
are there to stop the people who don't
want it badly enough. They're there to
stop the other people. So, your goals are
possible if you get tough with yourself
and face difficult truths. Professor
Pausch was a scrawny kid in junior league
football under a tough coach named Jim
Graham. There was one practice where he
just rode me all practice, just, "you're
doing this wrong, you're doing this wrong,
go back and do it again, you owe me,
you're doing push-ups after practice." And,
when it was all over, one of the other
assistant coaches came over and said,
"Yeah Coach Graham rode you pretty hard
didn't he?" I said, "Yeah." He said, "That's a
good thing." He said, "When you're screwing up
and nobody's saying anything to you anymore,
that means they gave up." That's a
lesson that stuck with me my whole life,
is that when you see
yourself doing something badly and
nobody's bothering to tell you anymore,
that's a very bad place to be. Your
critics are your ones telling you they
still love you and care. For 90 minutes,
he gives lessons about living. We cannot
change the cards we are dealt, just how
we play the hand. And, about facing death.
In case there's anybody who wandered in
and doesn't know the back story, my dad
always taught me when there's
an elephant in the room, introduce them.
At the lecture, some of his friends know,
but others are just learning that he was
diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and it
has spread. If you look at my cat scans,
there are
approximately 10 tumors in my liver, and the
doctors told me 3 to 6 months of good
health left. That was a month ago, so you
can do the math. If I don't seem as
depressed or morose as I should be, sorry
to disappoint you. And, I assure you I am
NOT in denial, and the other thing is I'm
in better shape than most of you.
So, anybody who wants to cry or pity me
can come down and do a few of those, and
then you may pity me. So, don't try to
tell Randy Pausch not to love the life
he has left.
So, my next piece of advice is you just
have to decide if you're a Tigger or
you're an Eeyore. I think I'm clear where I
stand on the great Tigger-Eeyore debate.
One month after the lecture,
October 2007, we decide to go to
Pittsburgh for an interview with Doctor
Pausch. We're in the library of his
beloved Carnegie Mellon, where ostensibly,
he was a teacher of computer science,
virtual reality, creating a whole program
for the school with Professor Don Marinelli.
But, long before his illness, Professor
Pausch says he thought the students
needed something more. How do you behave
with integrity? How do you behave in a
way that other people will respect you
and want to keep working with you? If I
only had three words of advice, they
would be 'tell the truth.' If I got three
more words, I'd add 'all the time.' I'll
tell you right now if there's anything
I've learned in my career, a lot of
people don't want the truth. A lot of
people just want to be patted and
stroked and told how wonderful they are.
So, in effect, he dared his students to
love the truth about themselves. They
even handed each other report cards on
character issues like teamwork.
Next up, lessons about fearlessness. And
the kids said, "Well, what content do we make?"
I said, "Hell, I don't know. You make
whatever you want. Two rules:
no shooting violence and no pornography."
You'd be amazed how many 19 year old
boys are completely out of ideas when
you take those off the table. We went to him
and said, "We have a couple of ideas. This
idea here is very safe; this idea here
with these cell phones is very risky."
He said, "Go for the risk. It's better to fail
spectacularly than to pass along
and do something which
is mediocre." Student Phil Light, who says
Professor Pausch even created an award
for the most glorious failure. What's the
old saying? 'You can always tell the
pioneers by the arrows in their backs.'
Through the years, some of Randy Pausch's
students balked. Most of them soared. Such
an awesome, awesome, once-in-a-lifetime
kind of teacher. It became this
underground thing. I'd walk into a class
with 50 students in it, and there
were 95 people in the room. And people's
roommates and friends and parents. I've
never had parents come to class before.
It was like something I'd never seen
before.
it was unbelievable. Jared Cohen is
president of Carnegie Mellon. Here at
Carnagie Mellon, we don't have big-time
sports, but when I walked in the room, I
felt like I had walked into a pep rally
for a major football game. So, it was a
thrilling time for Randy Pausch, and then
one day, he felt tired. Thought maybe he
had a kind of flu. A little weak, a little
bit bloated feeling. I eventually got
yellow skin jaundice and itching and we
had originally thought I had hepatitis.
An ultrasound, a cat-scan, a life changed
in a sentence. And he said, "Randy, there's
a mass on your pancreas. And he said,
"And it's not fair." Don't think it's
unfair. We all stand on the dartboard,
and you know, a very small percentage of
us are going to catch the dart labeled
'pancreatic cancer,' and I was
unlucky, but it wasn't unfair. Pancreatic
cancer is pretty much the most fatal
cancer of all. It is ruthless. It is
brutal.
Very few people beat it, and there are a lot of
reasons for that. It's an internal organ
that's sort of wrapped in other stuff.
Only 15 to 20 percent of pancreatic
cancer patients have any early symptoms.
I was lucky in that my tumor pressed on
the bile duct. You don't get enough bile
into your system, you can't digest your
food as well, and not to be crass about
this, but the tell-tale sign is that your
stools in the toilet bowl start to float
and become less dense, and what this
means is that you're not digesting fats,
because you're not getting the bile into
your system. There was massive surgery to
remove a third of his pancreas, parts of
his stomach, a crushing blast of
chemotherapy and radiation. Crushing for
body, not spirit. I remember once my doctor
asked me, "So are you feeling depressed?"
I said, "Well, compared to an average
46 year old, probably, but compared to a
guy who just had his insides carved out,
who's in tremendous physical pain and is
being told that, you know, he has a way
less than 50/50 chance of living to five
years, I think I feel pretty good." And so,
he just turned to the intern and said, "Write
down 'not depressed.'" But, eight months
after the surgery, the cancer had come
back. A dedicated Tigger had to reach
inside himself again. I've never found
anger to make a situation better, and
right now, I've got a finite amount of
time, and I can spend that time angry or
I can spend that time doing something
productive and worthwhile and having fun.
I don't know how to not have fun.
I'm dying and I'm having fun. He tells me
he's trying an experimental vaccine and
so far, chemotherapy has slowed the
progress of the disease.
That typically holds on for a couple of
months, so I may have just doubled my
lifespan, and you know, well you try doing
that. He told me one of his favorite
philosophical sources is that famous
newspaper editor's letter, the one
assuring the little girl Virginia there
is a Santa Claus.
The editor's letter about, your little
cynical friends live in a cynical age
You say there is no evidence and you
can't see, but can you see love? Can you
see hope? These are the most important
things and you can't see them or touch
them. Did you ever see fairies dancing on
the lawn? Of course not, but that's no
proof they're not there. That's right.
There's no scientist in the world that can tell
you there aren't fairies on the lawn.
Back at the lecture, sitting in the
audience, his wife, mother of their three
children, the children he worries he will
not be around to protect. We're not going
to talk about my wife, we're not going to talk about my
kids, because I'm good but I'm not good
enough to talk about that without
tearing up. There is a sadness that
comes when I think about my kids, and
"it's not so much a 'I won't get the
experience of being a dad.' I mean that's
sad, but the really strong emotions for
me are 'they won't have me for them.'
And that's where it's okay for me to say,
"that's not fair." A metaphor I've used is
somebody's going to push my family off a
cliff pretty soon and I won't be there
to catch them, and that breaks my heart.
But, I have some time to sew some nets, to
cushion the fall, and that seems like the
best and highest use of my time. So, I can
curl up in a ball and cry, or I can get
to work on the nets.
Time now for our first interview to end.
But, before I can go, the professor stops
me to critique what I've done. There's
one question you didn't ask me. Which one?
About people keep asking about making a
movie out of my life.
Wait, you're doing your part and my part.
This is the best interview I've ever had. Okay yes, a movie...
Can't be done. No Hollywood actress
is pretty enough to play my wife.
When we return, you'll meet her.
This looks like the face of a beautiful
woman, but in fact, she was once one of
Randy Pausch's most formidable brick
walls. Some brick walls are made of flesh.
Jai Glasgow was a literature graduate
student who met Randy Pausch at a
lecture. She checked his website, not
promising for her. She thought maybe he
was gay. You thought he was gay. Well, he
was 38 years old, he had never been
married. The pictures on the site
rejoiced over gingerbread houses and
stuffed animals, like the kind you win at
the fair. Stuffed animals. Stuffed animals?
Alright, winning stuffed animals.
He says it started when he was a little kid.
This may seem mundane to you, but when
you're a little kid you see the big buff
guys walking around in the amusement park
and they got all these big stuffed
animals, right? So he still likes the idea
that big muscles and stuffed animals go
together. When he began to date Jai, she
says it was one thing to love a man who
tells the truth, another to live with it.
He's challenging, he's forthright, quick
to analyze a situation, feel like he can
see the truth, and to be able to relay
that truth to you. Whether or not it's
socially appropriate for him to do that
is another thing. I was quite an
arrogant young man, and I come bounding
in and, you know, I'm just, I'm gonna save
the world there all these kids.... [fades out]
This professor Andy Van Dam tried to help him.
He put his arm around my
shoulders and we went for a little walk and
he said, "Randy, it's such a shame that
people perceive you as so arrogant,
because it's going to limit what you're
going to be able to accomplish in life."
What a hell of a good way to word, 'you're
being a jerk.' It's a whole chapter of his
book, "Lessons from a Recovering Jerk."
Proper apologies have three parts. What I
did was wrong. I feel badly that I hurt
you. How do I make this better?
It's the third part that people tend to
forget. Finally, he managed to win over
the woman of his dreams. He's so smart,
he's by far the smartest person I think
I've ever met, and I've always been able
to trust him because he is so caring and
has always made me feel very special.
Their marriage was a strong partnership
of equals. They had three children she
stayed at home to raise full-time, and
seven happy years before he got the news,
the cancer. He gave Jai the phone to hear it
from the doctor too. Did your knees buckle?
I was sitting on the floor when I took
that phone call. And was it a slow,
incremental kind of realization that it?
No, I think by the time I got off the
phone, Randy told me he was going to die.
So, there were many nights that we would
go to bed, roll over, and hug each other
and cry, and this went on for several
days before we finally said, "we have to
be able to function." I felt like I
had to get through the day without
crying. I felt like I had to be able to
look at him playing with the kids and not cry.
"What are we making, Logan?" "We're making a snowman!"
You hear that voice that comes in and says it could be the
last time they're playing in the snow together, and
I just have to shut it off. Shut it off,
so that tomorrow doesn't rob you of
today. A therapist gave her a kind of
mantra to say: the words "not helpful."
Did you just have to train it like a
muscle? I think so, you know you catch
yourself going down that path and say,
"not helpful." I keep imagining people
listening to you and thinking where does
she get this? As if it's bearable. Because
it is. A lot of people have not exactly
the same situation, but they have
terrible things in their life that
they're having to deal with, and they get
up and they do it too. We're no different.
I think that there is that
within us. At this point,
Randy joins us, now our second interview,
and we tell him we've been digging
around and learned that before he
married Jai, the mild-mannered professor
was a serious Don Juan. I even had a
source, his mother. Girls seemed to think
he was great. Since then, there have been many.
So your mom said you were a player.
My mom said I was a player? Your mother. You've
taught me to tell the truth.
Okay, my friends and family were starting to use
words like 'ever' and 'still' and 'Peter Pan,'
and when I met Jai it just... things
just completely changed.
He has already lived a few months beyond
the doctor's six-month prognosis, though
as we talk, we notice a physical
difference. His face is fuller, in part
because of a brutal regimen of
chemotherapy. Though, his kind doesn't
make you lose your hair. And, this time, he
would occasionally perspire or then
shudder as if cold. I do feel a different
mood. A lot of things have changed.
Are you in pain? I don't think of myself as
being in pain. Oh, and I have neuropathy; I
I have a lot of trouble feeling my
fingers and toes. I sometimes have trouble
keeping my body temperature up. My
kidney functions at about 50%. But, he is
still Randy. I am alive,
so I feel great. Between doctors
appointments, he and Jai try to take some
time just for each other. His inspiration?
Another of his eclectic philosophers. The
best piece of parenting advice I have
ever heard is from flight attendants, and
that is: when things really get tough, put
on your own oxygen mask first. We
wondered if the two of them have a kind
of list of things they'd like to do in
the days to come. If there was anything I
wanted to do that badly, you know, I
should have already done it. The little
moments of joy that we have around the
house, you know, that's my bucket list, is
how many of those moments can we have.
Where we are together and we're holding
hands or we're reading the paper and
debating what's going on, and those
are gems that I hold on to.
But, Jai had already confided to us that
the day before the interview, she'd been
in tears again. When we get the scans
once a month, it's very hard. That reminder
of 'it's there,' you know, that sand
is ticking, that sand is coming right out.
As they sat together, Jai kept looking at
him. What were you looking at in his face?
Oh, just those lovely brown eyes. Were you having your Nancy
Reagan moment? I hope so. He's such an
eloquent speaker. What is it you most
like looking at in her face? I like
looking at her, period. Your know, the best
part is being with my wife.
That's the best anything can get.
When we come back, the rest of this love
story: their three children.
A question: if you had six months to live,
where would you begin with your children?
Dylan Pausch, age six,
so like Randy. It's always questions,
questions, questions. What did he do?
He freed the slaves. How did he free them?
High five! Alright!
Logan, age three, so like his dad, too. I see
the gregariousness, the happiness, the
Tigger-ness. Is that crazy high? Is that crazy high?
Is that crazy high? Oh my
goodness that's crazy high!
Chloe is 18 months.
In our first interview, Randy had told us
he was spending a lot of time thinking
about and researching what of your life
you should leave for your kids, like a
message in a bottle. He's made videos of
course, with a portrait of himself as an
everyday dad. What's my favorite food
or my least favorite food, you know, it's
not all the big life lessons, you know,
sometimes it's just the little things.
I want my kids to hear the bad
stories about me as well as the good.
Bad stories? What bad stories do you imagine?
Oh, all the stupid things, the bonehead mistakes.
Give me one stupid, bonehead thing. Well, there was
the home repair that involved
electrocution. And guess what he's making
them? Stuffed animals. I think that them
having something that I made with my own
hands will be a way for me to connect
with them. He told us this is all a
perfect metaphor for his iPod. If Randy
were to fill his iPod, what would the
songs be? You know, "If I Could Catch
Time in a Bottle."
[Time in a Bottle by Jim Croce plays]
And of course, there's the book he has written,
making sure that each boy has an equal
number of words. And, for Chloe, his only
girl, with her mischievous smile. There's that
sort of twinkle in the eye. And maybe it
was the look in Chloe's eye that
inspired a cautionary moment in that
lecture, a lesson for girls everywhere. It
took me a long time but I finally
figured it out. When it comes to men that
are romantically interested in you, it's
really simple: just ignore everything
they say and only pay attention to what
they do. And I thought back to my
bachelor days and I said, damn. You almost
look like you were gonna give Daddy a kiss.
Ha? No, Haha! Where are you in telling
the kids? We're not. When do you start to?
Where he is in bed sick, and at that time,
they will understand, they will see that
he is sick and so the words "your daddy is sick"
will match with the picture of 'Daddy is
sick.' Right now, Daddy doesn't look sick,
and he doesn't act sick.
The best part of the story will be told on the last day
of my life. On the last day of your life?
So, I'll never get to hear the best part
of the story. That's wrong.
Do you think Dylan knows something? I hope to god he doesn't.
After all those years, I think you may
have to remind me. It's not time for him
to know. I pray nobody will go up to him
and say anything to him. It's not time. So,
if somebody were to tell him or if he
were to suspect his father were dying, he
might think that that was today, tonight,
tomorrow. Where do you come up with all
these great stories?
In your head? Are you using
your imagination? It really isn't real.
He and Jai are also recruiting playmates who share
Randy's spirit, like Randy's niece and
nephew, who remember when Uncle Randy
gave them two rules: no whining and don't
tell Mom what we do. He was most
determined to teach them that material
things are just not important. Once, he
had a brand-new car.
So cool, awesome, blue convertible.
It's a convertible. Yeah, very cool. Their mother,
Randy's sister, was worried, lecturing her
kids about being seriously careful. So,
uncle Randy opened a can of coke and
poured it right in under the seat.
We couldn't believe it.
Randy and Jai have also gotten help to
prepare for that other unbearable
conversation, the one Jai will have in
days to come. They're guided by Dr.
Michelle Reese. In very simple terms that
Mommy or Daddy got so very sick that
their heart couldn't beat anymore.
One of the things that we were
told was don't talk about dying as like
going to sleep. A lot of young children,
if you use that as your metaphor, will be
afraid when they go to sleep that
they're going to die, too.
[Randy saying "goodbye" in multiple languages]
Lots of different ways to say goodbye.
He is also leaving a "someday" message for
Jai. Certainly, I want her to be happy and
I want the kids to be happy, and if that
means her remarrying, I'm all for it. On
questions of religion, Randy says he'd
like to keep those private. He told us
his late father, a presbyterian, was the
most Christian man he'd ever met, and he
often returns to a familiar prayer. Well,
you know, the serenity prayer is not a
bad thing for anybody. God grant me the
strength to change the things I can, the
serenity to accept the things I can't,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
For Jai, a different phrase. Was there
something you've read, something someone
has said that is what you repeat to
yourself in the darkest times now?
I have everything I need.
She's used it in a kind of meditation.
But are you saying today, at this point,
you have a kind of peace?
Yes.
For better or for worse, it is what it is
and I can't change the fact that Randy
has cancer. I can't make those tumors go
away, no matter how much I would want to.
So, it is what it is, and I have to live
with that, and in order to do so, I accept,
I accept the circumstances. I accept the
conditions upon which we are
living. I do, and I am at peace with that.
I don't like it, but I accept it.
On a family trip to Orlando, the night at
the hotel, we watched Randy put the kids
to bed, with the questions he asks them
at the end of every day. Okay, here we go
pumpkin. Randy, at bedtime, he asked them
questions. What was the best thing about
your day? What was the best part of today?
Playing with Mommy. Okay, what was the worst part
of today? Playing with you. Playing with me? Are you
joking me? Yeah. You are, okay! So let's say
you're in your pajamas. What was the best
thing about your day and what was the
worst thing about your day? Well first
off, I'd say the day's not over yet, so
there's always a chance that there will
be a new best. And, on Halloween, Randy, Jai,
and the children dressed as The
Incredibles. Before we take a break,
something I promised Randy and Jai I
would say to you: if by any chance, any of
you ever see the Pausch family, just
remember, say nothing to the children.
They'll learn at the right time. When we
come back, some of the people who say
Randy simply changed their lives, and he
gets a chance at something he never
thought he would do.
Never lose the childlike wonder. It's
just too important. It's what drives us.
And there, I actually have a picture
of me dreaming.
I did a lot of that. It's a famous
event in the Pausch household, when Randy
was a little boy and asked to paint some
of his dreams on the walls of his room.
And the great thing about this is they
let me do it, and they didn't get upset
about it, and it's still there. If you go
to my parents' house, it's still there. I'd
always wanted a submarine and an elevator.
Well they put up "disco sucks" and I made
them take "sucks" out. That's the only
hand I had in it. Anybody
who is out there who is a parent: if your
kids want to paint their bedroom, as
a favor to me, let them do it. It'll
be okay. Don't worry about resale value
on the house. All the people who
watched his lecture have answered the
call. Peter Rebling of Virginia let his
daughter do it. Diane Gregory let her son.
Carol Castle's daughter Kelsey wanted
shocking pink. I'm like, "Why do you want to
paint you room Pepto-Bismol?" But, because
Kelsey had also watched Randy's lecture,
she painted some bricks on her shocking
pink walls. Let me let you in on a little secret.
Not only that, in schools across the
country, students have begun to perform
Randy's speech. You see the brick walls
are there...if you give us a chance to
show how badly we want something.
A faltering beauty queen in Kent, Ohio
didn't quit. He helped me achieve my dream.
A businessman hands out copies to his
employees. A minister uses the tape to
inspire song at choir practice.
And in California, a breast cancer
patient, Kaje Lane, watched and took
heart. His positive attitude just kind of
lifted that fear out of me.
Alfred Nicolosi of Salem, New Jersey,
battling illness and depression, cleaned
his house and began to live. Randy's life
turned mine around. You just have to
decide if you're a Tigger or an Eeyore.
In Gold Beach, Oregon, Barb with terminal
multiple myeloma. If he can do it, so can
I. If I don't seem as depressed or morose as
I should be, sorry to disappoint you.
I love that line. She packed up and
moved across country to be near her
grandchildren. I'd like them to remember
me as the fun grandma. Randy Pausch says
maybe you should keep a crayon in your
pocket so the smell can remind you when
you were young and thought you could fly.
He still has the list he made as a
little boy, Impossible Dreams. Win
stuffed animals. We know how that one
ended. Write an article in the World Book
Encyclopedia. He can check that off, too.
But, we noticed there was something on
Randy's list that had long been out of
reach. All right, let's talk about
football. My dream was to play in the
National Football League. And, most of you
don't know that I actually pl– no. [laughter]
We were with Randy at one of his
doctor's appointments.
We'd made a couple of calls, and
producer Jeff Marts told him there was
an invitation. This Wednesday, the
Pittsburgh Steelers were wondering if
you wanted to come to practice and maybe
toss around a football. You have got to
be kidding me.
So, bring your sneakers. Right. Wow.
Wow.
That will be so cool.
He walks out on the field for his own
kind of Chariots of Fire, wearing the
jersey of his favorite player: legendary
wide receiver Hines Ward, only to learn
that the man about to throw the passes
is Hines Ward himself.
The once scrawny kid, hammered by the
coach of a peewee league, caught every single pass.
Catching like me out there huh? But then they ask, is
he up for one more dare? They want to know if you
want to try kicking. Haven't done that
in a while, sure. Nervous, but he is the
guy who says sometimes the only safe
thing is to take a chance. I used to be an athlete.
It's better to be a 'used to be' than
'never was.' Damn sure. I can do this, I
think. How's it going? Hi, Daniel.
Nice to meet you, I'm Randy. Randy, nice to meet you.
Here we go!
In the locker room, a moment with tight
end John Dekker, whose dad's going into surgery.
What's the surgery? For prostate cancer.
My thoughts will be with him.
Star quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, just
returning from a serious motorcycle
accident. It's an honor to have you here,
it really is. I'm glad you could make it.
The honor's all mine. I admire the grit you've showed
coming back from surgery. A little adversity, yeah.
Mine's not as bad as yours, but it was bad,
I'll tell you what. I think I still look
good. I think you look great!
Wow, just a great place.
They are very big people.
One more note. When it comes to
childlike wonder, there's something else
you should know about Randy Pausch and
his team at Carnegie Mellon. They created
something called "The Alice Project." You
can download it for free tonight on the
internet. It teaches kids to learn about
computers by telling wonderful stories.
And then, we're going to have Kristen
slap Trevor, so this is basically a
reenactment of my middle school
experience. He particularly designed it
for girls, since only 17 to 28 percent of
those majoring in computer science in
college are female. And, to even let one not
quite girl anymore show how I could
stand the professor on his heels. When we
come back, our last visit with Randy, just
six days ago.
Hello! Hi! Just last Thursday, we went to see
Randy once again at his home. It had been
a rough time. I'm still a little wobbly,
but hanging in there. He had just come
home from the hospital. The chemotherapy
had shut down his kidneys temporarily,
and he'd been in heart failure. With
three liters of fluid surrounding your
lungs, your breathing starts to turn into [pants].
So, that was, you know, that was a
little bit scary. He acknowledged every
now and then, even Tigger goes down for
the count. You know, there are certainly
times when you feel like okay, yeah,
you've beaten me down to my knees, and
now the challenge is I'm on my knees and
you're just gonna keep beating me, and
the question is are you gonna beat me all
the way to the ground or am I going to
find a way to struggle back up to my
feet? And, you know, it takes time
sometimes. Even for you?
Absolutely for me. There's certainly
times when I cry, you know, I like to cry
in the shower, I think for the same
reason that people sing in the shower is
that you think nobody, you know, it's your
own little private space. He told us the
support of strangers had meant the world
to him. So, how do you get people to help
you? You can't get there alone. You get
people to help you by telling the truth,
being earnest. I'll take an earnest
person over a hip person every day,
because hip is short-term. Earnest is
long-term. I was a big believer in people
when this started, but my goodness.
He showed us a few of the
emails he's received, former students
saying how he changed them, parents
writing, too. A lot of people wrote to me
and said I have a teenager, I have so
much trouble talking with them, they
watched your lecture and after the
lecture, we sat down and talked for hours.
And, letters like this one.
To think that on December 29th, 2007, I
planned my suicide. And now, I thank God
for every day I have to live. I'm ashamed
that I took my life for granted while
you take nothing for granted.
Again, it's time for us to leave, but again,
before we go, the professor has another
critique of me for the broadcast tonight.
Be careful, he says, of that "Saint Randy"
stuff. Every time I do teaching
evaluations, 95% of them say, you know,
this was one of the best courses I've
ever taken, and the other 5% say you are
a monster and should not be let
near students. And sometimes, you know, I
have all the social graces of, you know, a
lumbering moose. Which brings us back to
the day of the lecture. Dr. Randy Pausch.
When students and colleagues came from
all over the country to hear and pay
tribute to their singular mentor and
friend. Don't tell people how to live
their lives. Just tell them stories, and
they'll figure out how the stories apply
to them. It was sort of like being there
when when Babe Ruth hit his called
home run... Jeff's Zaslow of the Wall
Street Journal, co-author of Randy's book.
His fate is our fate, but it's just
sped up. We're all dying just like Randy
is. When we can see him how he's
traveling, it makes us think about how
we're going to travel. Toward the end of
the lecture, a surprise for Jai. It was
her birthday.
I went up and gave him a big hug and I
whispered to him that, I asked him, I said
"please don't die," because all the magic
would leave with him.
The lecture, over. Time to go. So today's
talk was about my childhood dreams,
enabling the dreams of others, and some
lessons learned. But, did you figure out
the head fake?
It's not about how to achieve your
dreams. It's about how to lead your life.
Have you figured out the second head fake?
Talk's not for you. It's for my kids.
Thank you, goodnight.
[music and applause]
There was a definite sense, when I put that talk
together that, to use another
football expression, you know, I wanted to
leave it all on the field.
[music and applause]
I've played the football games where
you walk off the field and the
scoreboard didn't end up the way you
wanted, but you knew that you really did
give it all, and the other team was too strong.
Yeah, I'm not gonna beat the cancer. I
tried really. I mean, I did everything. We
have no regrets. We got the best medical
care in the world, but sometimes you're
just not gonna beat the thing. But, you
want to walk off the field and say, yeah
no regrets, gave it the best shot.
I wanted to walk off the stage and say
anything I thought was important.
I had my hour.
The Last Lecture, which is published by
our sister company Hyperion is in
bookstores today and you can go online
for more information on the Pancreatic
Cancer Action Network and the Lustgarten
Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer
Research, which is doing something very
special with Randy's book. I'm Diane
Sawyer, and for all of us at Primetime
and ABC News, I want to thank Randy Pausch
and his family, as we wish them and you a
good night and a joyful day tomorrow.