So I have been listening to the Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. This is a book about a 42 year old professor who must come to terms with the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer and the news that he will only have about 2-6 months to live. For some reason I am drawn to these types of books. Something about the fact that one day we are feeling great, and the next day we have 2-6 months to live, both incredibly frightens me, and also intrigues me. It intrigues me because it is a reminder that life is precious and short. Anyway, Randy has 3 small children: 18 months, 2.5 and 4 years.  Towards the end of the book he speaks of his wife and family who will be left to care for his children when he is gone. I can not imagine what this would be like, there is no amount of life insurance that could possibly make this transition easy. His book and his lecture are a gift to his family and young children, and I assume to himself, as a way to say goodbye. It has left me thinking about my children, the joy of each minute, and how difficult it would be to have to say goodbye at such a young age. I will have to address this in a later post, no matter how we feel about public blogs, or the sharing of our ideas on the internet one thing is true, these kind of things may some day be a gift to our children, our best kept photos, our words, our thoughts, caught here on digital paper. It is in a way it’s own life insurance policy I guess, one that may be more important than money in the end.

I was listening to this last chapter on a 4.5 mile run yesterday through Pogonip Park. I came across this plateau where there is nothing but tall dry grass about chest high, the sun was setting and I had come out into this valley, behind me were the tall evergreens, and in front of me was the bluest of blue skies, and the sun just peaking over the hillside.  From here you could see the entire bay.  The light was split by the tree tops and distributed carefully, into pockets of green, orange, and red making the dry grass illuminate. It was like something out of a picture book, and I was alone out there, just the sound of the breeze, and my feet touching the dry dirt pathway. I removed my ear buds and stood for a moment in silence to take it all in. Trying to understand for a moment what Randy was really saying in his last lecture. As far as I am concerned it may be best summed up in a quote from another one of my favorite short stories: Tuesdays with Morrie.

Morrie Schwartz tells us:

“The truth is, once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.”

And this may be the greatest challenge we will every face!