이번주 강의 ― The Last Lecture (5)

[조국현]

The Last Lecture는

미국 펜실베니아주 피츠버그에 있는 Carnegie Mellon 대학의 Randy Pausch 교수가

젊은 나이에 췌장암으로 시한부 인생을 남겨둔 상황에서

어린 세 자녀를 위해 남긴 기록입니다.

인생의 통찰을 줄 수 있을 만한 책인 것 같습니다.

뉴욕 타임즈의 베스트셀러에도 선정되었고요.

훌륭한 책을 토대로 영어도 배우고 인생도 배워보죠.

The Last Lecture (5)
Chapter I : The Last Lecture / 2 : My Life in a Laptop

At first, Jai didn’t plan to attend the lecture. She felt she needed to stay in Virginia with the kids to deal with the dozens of things that had to get done in the wake of our move. I kept saying, “I want you there.” The truth was, I desperately needed her there. And so she eventually agreed to fly to Pittsburgh on the morning of the talk.

I had to get to Pittsburgh a day early, however, so at 1:30 p.m. on September 17, the day Jai turned forty-one, I kissed her and the kids goodbye, and drove to the airport. We had celebrated her birthday the day before with a small party at her brother’s house. Still, my departure was an unpleasant reminder for Jai that she’d now be without me for this birthday and all the birthdays to come.

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. We’d become as close as brothers.

Steve and I embraced, hired a rental car, and drove off together, trading gallows humor. Steve said he’d just been to the dentist, and I bragged that I didn’t need to go to the dentist anymore.

We pulled into a local diner to eat, and I put my laptop on the table. I flashed quickly through my slides, now trimmed to 280. “It’s still way too long,” Steve told me. “Everyone will be dead by the time you’re through with the presentation.”

The waitress, a pregnant woman in her thirties with dishwater-blond hair, came to our table just as a photo of my children was on the screen. “Cute kids,” she said, and asked for their names. I told her: “That’s Dylan, Logan, Chloe…” The waitress said her daughter’s name was Chloe, and we both smiled at the coincidence. Steve and I kept going through the PowerPoint, with Steve helping me focus.

When the waitress brought our meals, I congratulated her on her pregnancy. “You must be overjoyed,” I said.

“Not exactly,” she responded. “It was an accident.”

As she walked away, I couldn’t help but be struck by her frankness. Her casual remark was a reminder about the accidental elements that play into both our arrival into life…and our departure into death. Here was a woman, having a child by accident that she surely would come to love. As for me, through the accident of cancer I’d be leaving three children to grow up without my love.

An hour later, alone in my room at the hotel, my kids remained in my head as I continued to cut and rearrange images from the talk. The wireless internet access in the room was spotty, which was exasperating because I was still combing the Web, looking for images. Making matters worse, I was starting to feel the effects of the chemo treatment I’d received days before. I had cramps, nausea and diarrhea.

I worked until midnight, fell asleep, and then woke up at 5 a.m. in a panic. A part of me doubted that my talk would work at all. I thought to myself: “This is exactly what you get when you try to tell your whole life story in an hour!”

I kept tinkering, rethinking, reorganizing. By 11 a.m., I felt I had a better narrative arc; maybe it would work. I showered, got dressed. At noon, Jai arrived from the airport and joined me and Steve for lunch. It was a solemn conversation, with Steve vowing to help look after Jai and the kids.

At 1:30 p.m., the computer lab on campus where I spent much of my life was dedicated in my honor; I watched the unveiling of my name over the door. At 2:15 p.m., I was in my office, feeling awful again—completely exhausted, sick from the chemo, and wondering if I’d have to go on stage wearing the adult diaper I’d brought as a precaution.

Steve told me I should lie down on my office couch for a while, and I did, but I kept my laptop on my belly so I could continue to fiddle. I cut another sixty slides.

At 3:30 p.m., a few people had already begun lining up for my talk. At 4 p.m., I roused myself off the couch and started gathering my props for the walk across campus to the lecture hall. In less than an hour, I’d have to be on the stage.