So I have debated over the last week or so if I should post this. I had decided that I was not going to for a few reasons. First off, its a pretty personal thing for me and I wasnt sure that I wanted it to be out there for everyone to see. But last week I had posted some thoughts and got some positive responses, so I have decided to go ahead with it. For my final class we were instructed to read the book The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. To save myself some time from explaining this book, I pulled this description off Amazon, A lot of professors give talks titled The Last Lecture. Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences cant help but mull the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy? When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didnt have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave--Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams--wasnt about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because time is all you have...and you may find one day that you have less than you think). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living. We were given some topics on which to write, and if we wanted to go a different route. I thought this was going to be a breeze. I started writing...and didnt like where my paper was going. So I had an idea, pitched it to the teacher, she loved it and told me she could not wait to read it. I told my teacher about my last year, and I told her that this book was all about how it impacts someone who is dying....what about those who are left behind? You are about to read one of the deepest papers I have ever written. Never before, and probably never again, will I or have I written a paper with so much invested into it. I now present to you, After the Last Lecture. As I sat down to read The Last Lecture, I really had no desire to read this book. It was an assignment that needed to be done, and that’s the only reason I started reading it. After getting about two chapters into this book, I became drawn into the book. I found myself relating to this book in an odd way. I was experiencing many of the same things that Randy had gone through, but my situation wasn’t the same. I wasn’t dying. Though nobody in my family was dying, I seemed to be experiencing the same pain. Last year, on May 7th, my mother called me around 10:30pm. Nobody ever calls me at that time, especially my parents, knowing how early I got up in the mornings for work. I instantly got that feeling that something was wrong. My mom went on to inform me that my 18 year old brother, Brent, had been killed in a single car accident. In a matter of seconds my world was flipped upside down, and torn apart. Jump back almost three months and two days to the date that my little baby boy was born. It was one of the brightest days in my life, a day my wife and I had been anxiously awaiting for a long time. After a miscarriage and a couple years of trying to have another child, we were finally given a gift of life in the form of a little boy. This little man would prove to be a calming point for many people in a couple of months. Unfortunately, he and his uncle Brent would never get to meet. Randy knew his death was imminent and although this was a very hard thing to deal with, he was able to cherish the time spent with those he loved, delighting in the moments spent with them. Because he was aware that his final chapter in life was coming to a close, he was able to make sure he spent extra time around his family, ensuring that would have extra memories of their father and husband. When my brother died, he was not able to give his last lecture, his goodbye to the world. But in many ways, his death was his last lecture. You see, because of his death, I have been given a new outlook on life. My brother was only 18 years old, young and full of life, and his life had only just begun. In a moment it was all taken away, with no warning. It was a brutal reminder that tomorrow is not promised to anyone, death hath no agenda, and that life is only temporary. Often people wondered how they will be remembered when they are gone. Will many people show up to my funeral? Will I be missed? The morning after Brent’s death, I didn’t have the slightest idea what expect at his funeral. He and my parents lived in a small town in West Virginia, so I didn’t expect anything large and magnificent. What I didn’t account for, was the fact that my brother was a volunteer firefighter. I failed to realize at the time how many this would effect. My brother was given a full fireman’s funeral. It was like something that you see in the movies or on the news. There were fire companies from many of the surrounding counties, who came to pay their final respects for a man they had never met, but he was a firefighter, so he was their brother as well. Even two of the State Fire Marshals came to pay their final respects on the day he was laid to rest. Over the course of two days, an estimated 200+ emergency personal came through to pay their final respects to a man which some of them had never even met. We always wonder what kind of legacy we will leave behind when we are gone. My family knew what we thought of Brent, but what did everyone else have to say about him? What kind of impression did he leave on those who had met him? Over those two days, we began to hear stories upon stories of what hard of a worker he was for such a young man, and how rare that was to see in someone his age these days. One man began to share with us that he was on the verge of committing suicide one day and my brother was driving by, saw him in his driveway. Brent pulled into the drive and got out of the truck, went over and sat beside this man, and just started talking to him and being an encouraging friend. This man said that Brent never knew he saved his life. I love my family, I always have, but I love them even more now than I ever did before. Now I make sure that it is something that they hear at least once a day. I find myself sitting there staring at my son while he crawls around and plays, studying his every little move, wondering what he is saying as he blurts out various noises. It’s not that I didn’t love my kids before, but that horrible accident has had a key role in assisting me to be more conscious of how little time I may have with my children. As an older brother, it would usually be I who would be marked with the “hero” tag by a sibling. He often talked about me to his friends, but he was the real hero in my eyes. His legacy will live on, even if everyone else in the world forgets who he is, or who he was, I won’t. He left me with some of the most valuable life lessons I have ever learned. Hold your kids tight. Kiss them daily and tell them you love them. Take some time out of your busy day to lie on the floor and play cars or Barbies with your kids. Make sure you give your kids memories to hold and to grasp to if you should be unexpectedly taken away. For me, it’s not about what everyone else thinks about me. Sure, I want to be successful. I want to be someone that everyone thought was a hard, dedicated worker, a man who was easy to get along with and fun to be around. Most of all, I want to be known and remembered for how I loved and cared for my family, the time I spent with them and what I meant to them.
Posted on: Wed, 19 Feb 2014 00:45:01 +0000
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