It is with great sadness that I’ve learned that Randy Pausch died yesterday as a result of pancreatic cancer - at the too young age of 47. His REALLY Achieving Your Dreams talk at Carnegie Mellon gave new meaning to the Last Lecture Series. Given as a gift for his children in the future, he gave us a gift as well.

You can watch the video here if you’ve not seen it yet.
Randy Pausch\’s Last Lecture

The one thing that is evident is that Randy lived his life with exuberance. Leaving his wife Jai and his 3 young children, Randy wanted them to have dreams and to more importantly - PLAY.

In his humorous lecture, even though we’re fully aware of his diagnosis, he made us laugh at ourselves and he encouraged us to tickle those dreams and let them out.

Completing one of his dreams…. we are blessed with an unexpected gift. I cannot have a blog titled Breathe and Savor and not include this most poignant lecture and a tribute to a beautiful soul.

From his lecture and later his book by the same name, I can guess that Randy was no saint. And I have no doubts that his energy and exuberance was often an aggravation to many around him. But I also know that he touched many people - and especially his students - with his love of life … long before his diagnosis.

I cannot add to Randy’s lecture - other than to encourage you to choose between Eeyore’s ‘oh bother’… and Tigger’s off-the-scale joy. Each day we can choose to respond to life’s challenges differently. Will you choose Tigger? I hope so.

God bless Randy Pausch… and give comfort to his family. Warmly, Ellie

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