Posted on 07/25/2008 9:02:19 AM PDT by WackySam
US professor Randy Pausch, who shot to global fame because of the inspirational "Last Lecture" he delivered just weeks after learning he had terminal cancer, died Friday, the university where he taught said.
"He died today," Alyssa Mayfield, a spokeswoman for Carnegie Mellon University, where Pausch had taught computer science since 1997, told AFP.
Pausch was 47.
Celebrated in his chosen field and praised as an inspirational teacher, Pausch sprang to worldwide fame for his "Last Lecture," delivered at Carnegie Mellon on September 18 last year after he learned he was dying of pancreatic cancer and had months to live.
"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just the way we play the hand," Pausch said in the lecture, which was laced with humor and optimism.
Titled "Really achieving your childhood dreams," the lecture was a call for all those who knew Pausch to "go on without him and do great things," Carnegie Mellon said in a statement released Friday.
The talk was videotaped and subsequently criss-crossed the world via the Internet. More than 3.2 million people had viewed the "Last Lecture" on YouTube alone as of Friday, and according to Carnegie Mellon, tens of millions have watched Pausch's inspirational talk.
"If I don't seem as depressed or morose as I should be, sorry to disappoint you," said Pausch, the married father of three young children, at the start of the lecture.
He focused in his talk not on his illness but on "my childhood dreams; how I believe I have been able to enable the dreams of others; and, to some degree, lessons learned... how you can use the stuff you hear today to pursue your dreams or enable the dreams of others."
(Excerpt) Read more at afp.google.com ...
Thank you God for letting us know him.
Its hard to bear to have a loved one afflicted with a terminal illness. We may not always be able to prevent a deadly disease but we can control how we decide to handle it. As long as we know we can live our life to fullest, then we have deprived death of his power to paralyze life and crush our spirit. That may be the greatest legacy Pausch gave us in his inspirational work “The Last Lecture.” Our lives may be finite but every one of them is a treasure for us to cherish.
The secret to dying well is to have lived well.
AMEN!!
Prayers for Randy and family.
I watched The Last Lecture with a mixture of pride and sorrow. The man surely was an inspiration. How sad to know his young family will be without their daddy.
Rest in peace.
Condolences to Randy Pausch’s family and friends.
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