The Last Lecture: Introduction-Part I

While I still can, I embrace every moment with them, and do the logistical things necessary to ease their path into a life without me.

Under the ruse of giving an academic lecture, I was trying to put myself in a bottle that would one day wash up on the beach for my children.

I lectured about the joy of life, about how much I appreciated life, even with so little of my own left. I talked about honesty, integrity, gratitude, and other things I hold dear. And I tried very hard not to be boring.

Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them.

Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them.

And while they speak, audiences can’t help but mull the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance?

And while they speak, audiences can’t help but mull the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance?

While I went through treatment, those running the lecture series kept sending me emails. “What will you be talking about?” they asked. “Please provide an abstract.”

Jai (pronounced “Jay”) had always been my cheerleader. When I was enthusiastic, so was she. But she was leery of this whole last-lecture idea.

From the time I’d gotten sick, I had made a pledge to myself to defer to Jai and honor her wishes.

Why was this talk so important to me? Was it a way to remind me and everyone else that I was still very much alive? To prove I still had the fortitude to perform?

“An injured lion wants to know if he can still roar,” I told Jai. “It’s about dignity and self-esteem, which isn’t quite the same as vanity.”

“An injured lion wants to know if he can still roar,” I told Jai. “It’s about dignity and self-esteem, which isn’t quite the same as vanity.”

“One thing I’ve learned,” I told Jai, “is that when parents tell children things, it doesn’t hurt to get some external validation. If I can get an audience to laugh and clap at the right time, maybe that would add gravitas to what I’m telling the kids.”

Jai smiled at me, her dying showman, and finally relented.

How could I turn this academic talk into something that would resonate with our kids a decade or more up the road?

I had little interest in giving a discourse on, say, my insights into how I coped with the disease, or how it gave me new perspectives.

I was sitting with Jai in a doctor’s waiting room at Johns Hopkins, awaiting yet another pathology report, and I was bouncing my thoughts off her.

Though I’ve always had a healthy sense of self, I knew this lecture needed more than just bravado.

My uniqueness, I realized, came in the specifics of all the dreams—from incredibly meaningful to decidedly quirky—that defined my forty-six years of life.

I had my laptop with me in that waiting room, and fueled by this epiphany, I quickly tapped out an email to the lecture organizers.

But I amassed 300 images of my family, students and colleagues, along with dozens of offbeat illustrations that could make a point about childhood dreams.

I landed in Pittsburgh and was met at the airport by my friend Steve Seabolt, who’d flown in from San Francisco. We had bonded years earlier, when I did a sabbatical at Electronic Arts, the video-game maker where Steve is an executive.

The wireless internet access in the room was spotty, which was exasperating because I was still combing the Web, looking for images.

It was a solemn conversation, with Steve vowing to help look after Jai and the kids.

Instead, I had chosen to give my lecture wearing the most appropriate childhood-dream garb I could find in my closet.

In that moment, I was definitely feeling healthy and whole, the Randy of old, powered no doubt by adrenaline and the thrill of a full house.

I knew I looked pretty healthy, too, and that some people might have trouble reconciling that with the fact that I was near death.

“If I don’t seem as depressed or morose as I should be, sorry to disappoint you,” I said, and after people laughed, I added: “I assure you I am not in denial. It’s not like I’m not aware of what’s going on...."

“My family—my three kids, my wife—we just decamped. We bought a lovely house in Virginia, and we’re doing that because that’s a better place for the family to be down the road.”

I also wanted the audience to know that I looked good, and felt OK, in part because my body had started to recover from the debilitating chemotherapy and radiation my doctors had been giving me.

I was now on the easier-to-endure palliative chemo.

“I am in phenomenally good health right now,” I said. “I mean, the greatest thing of cognitive dissonance you will ever see is that I am in really good shape. In fact, I am in better shape than most of you.”

Hours earlier, I wasn’t sure I’d have the strength to do what I was about to do, but now I felt emboldened and potent.

Hours earlier, I wasn’t sure I’d have the strength to do what I was about to do, but now I felt emboldened and potent.