Getting to grips with the inevitable

A few months’ back one of my sons, Ryan, sent me an email with a website link and the suggestion/instruction: “Watch this”. It turned out to be a full hour video of a lecture given by Randy Pausch, a Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. The university has a tradition of inviting retiring professors to sum up their wisdom in one public “Last Lecture”. In Pausch’s case, a 47 year old, he was nowhere near retiring; but he was dying of terminal liver cancer. So, the university Principal invited him to give a Last Lecture.

If you have access to the internet, and a computer with a decent sound system, google “Randy Pausch” and find his last lecture. Joan and I were riveted and moved by this all-American optimist. He died this year on 25 July, aged 47 and leaving a wife and three young children. His story and thoughts are also available in his book tilted: The Last Lecture. Here are a few of his many insights.

First insight: we cannot change the cards we are dealt, just the way we play the hand. When Pausch gave his last lecture (not at all about computer science!), he had ten tumours in his liver and only months to live. Fortunately he was still feeling relatively fit. So, he decided to live his remaining months spending as much time as possible enjoying his wife and children, but also writing a book based on the Last Lecture. He was not in denial about his situation. On the contrary, he undertook every medical treatment recommended for prolonging his life. He was definitely not ‘giving up’ but he did consciously decide against depression and decided for being as positive as possible for his family and friends, and for himself. Six years ago a very special friend of ours, Rietta Liebenberg, made a similar decision when she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She couldn’t change the cards she had been dealt, but she played the hand by telling herself and her family and friends that she was “living with cancer” rather than “dying from cancer”. None of this denies the awfulness of being terminally ill, both for you and for family and friends. But this approach does teach the rest of us that how we handle the shock and terror of approaching death is up to us! A decision is called for.

Second insight: we must strive to live in the now. All of us are going to die; no exceptions. But people generally don’t want to discuss death, and especially not its finality. We shy away from talking about it because we think that it’s morbid to do so. We think and behave as though we will live forever. Most religions understand our seeming inability to get to grips with our own personal end and posit an after-life or a reincarnation. It’s as though we delay facing the finality of death until a doctor pronounces that our end is definitely in sight.

Pausch reminds me of the 18^th century Anglican preacher, John Wesley. When asked what he would do if he discovered he had only a week to live he consulted his diary and said: Well, on Monday I will be doing this and that… and on Tuesday … and so on. He was definitely living in the now of his life – he would change nothing! He was already doing what he felt was important and fulfilling. Pausch says: Time is all you have, and you may find one day that you have less than you think! Use it now, wisely.

Third insight: Make a decision: are you going to be a Tigger or an Eeyore? I suspect that Randy Pausch was genetically addicted to having fun, to enjoying people and events. He claims it is a decision we all have to make. It seems perfectly captured in A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh characters. The question is: are you going to be an optimistic, fun-loving Tigger or a pessimistic, sad-sack Eeyore? It really is a choice!

Randy Pausch was the living example of what some Existentialist philosophers call an “authentic existence”. This is a person who really takes on board his or her finitude and lives a good life always acknowledging that this life has an absolute end. I find Pausch an inspiration – his life and death can help people to face the inevitability of their own demise, and to decide in the face of death to live every day as if the last, and to have fun and ensure enjoyment of everything you do.

I am equally inspired by people who have lived well and died well. I am grateful for the example of a number of current friends who are fighting cancer or battling heart disease with grace and a matter-of-fact approach which puts others at ease. I am choked up by the bravery and skill with which Ruth, one of our dearest friends in Johannesburg, is handling her approaching death from the same cancer as Randy Pausch. She is able to cry with her grown children and her friends, to take on board the whole cycle of denial, anger, bargaining, and depression and then move on to acceptance and dealing with it. She is a yet another model of how to live well and die well. Every day is a gift to be appreciated, enjoyed and savoured.

Carpe Diem my friends – seize the day!