The Last Lecture

I just finished The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. This book was a lot different than the books on my last reading list. I admit, when I first started reading this, I wasn't too fond of it. I felt like this guy was an arrogant man who was trying to get some publicity out of his death when he should be spending his last days with his wife and children. I have never been more wrong.

Randy Pausch (I'm only going by what I've just finished reading. I have not watched his last lecture and I have not seen any TV interviews with him.) was a truly amazing man. He found out that he had pancreatic cancer and only a short time to live. He did not become depressed or dwell on the fact that he was not going to see his children grow up. He embraced every moment he had left with his family. He did everything he knew possible to make sure his three children knew how much he loved them. I can not even imagine what it would be like to know I was never going to get to see Mike again. I hope I am never in the shoes of his wife. He wrote about how they met and when I first read it, I thought him to be annoying. At the end of the book, I realized that the memory of his that I just read is one of the most incredible memories his wife had ever had in her entire life. Who am I to judge? If I was told I only had three to six months left with Mike and Jaden, I don't know what I would do.

At times, I felt as though this book was jumping all over the place. Each chapter seemed so random. I had to stop and remind myself several times that I was reading this man's life, not just another book. A book about my life would be so random! Now that I'm finished with it, I'm wondering how he got it all to fit into only 207 pages.

The ending made me cry. Randy wrote about how there were times when he would cry in the shower when he would think about his children growing up without their father. He wrote about the times he and Jai, his wife, would fall asleep crying in each others' arms, wake up in the middle of the night to cry some more, then fall back asleep. He wrote about how Jai came up on stage after his last lecture, hugged and kissed him, and whispered in his ear, "Don't die." The Last Lecture was quite possibly the most inspirational book I have ever read. I don't recommend you read it, I insist on you reading it. Definitely a * * * * * book!

The next book on my non-fiction list is Life Beyond Measure: Letters to My Great-Granddaughter by Sidney Poitier. I'll blog this one on September 29th. Oh, and I added a new book to this list. Burnt Toast by Terri Hatcher replaced Marley and Me. Don't worry though, I'm adding Marley and Me to my next list!