47 year old Randy Pausch has died, a victim of pancreatic cancer. He knew some time ago that his time was limited, something I discovered because my mother sent me his “final lecture,” which he’d begun giving after he discovered his prognosis, and he became quite famous for it.

What is there to say? Professor Pausch gave himself in his final days, with his final lecture, to that everlasting idea that we must leave something behind. Professor Pausch said that his lecture, his book, was for his children. If it helped others, so much the better.

We must all, sooner or later, face that great and inexplicable boundary that is death. How much of our lives shall we dedicate towards its understanding? That must surely be our greatest question, our greatest fear. What do we leave behind? When we leave this life, what difference will we have made? How will we be remembered? I am quite young, but already I have seen too much of death, seen too many of my peers taken by it, offer themselves up to it. We have delved so deep into the consciousness of the human mind, but no study can discern that which, fundamentally, drives all of us. How shall we live? How shall we die?

We must not fear death. It is of no use; no more substantial than shying from the rising of the sun. How much time, how many lives, have we dedicated to our pursuit of that which lies beyond? More than I dare count. It is an awful bliss, such contemplation. I am not faced with death. I might be, of course, confronted with it at any moment. A swerving car, a faulty aircraft engine, a crack in the railroad track, a nuclear disaster, some unhealthy machination in my arteries — who can know when death approaches?

What have we each to offer? What may we impart upon our fellows, that we may be remembered when we are gone? That is for each of us to determine. That is for each of us to create. I know well those who have left their mark upon me; some have gone already, some have time yet to build upon that legacy. Randy Pausch was one of those who left me something, though he did not know me. I hope that it will be some time before I am left another.  As I often find myself doing , in the end I turn to the Bard:

And, when he shall die,

Take him and cut him out in little stars,

And he will make the face of Heaven so fine

That all the world will be in love with night

And pay no worship to the garish sun.

My thoughts are with his wife and children.

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