The sun shone down so hard you could feel your own heartbeat in your head. The cracked, blackened earth groaned – there was no more water here to sweat. The drought was upon them now.

Words can evoke powerful memories or send us to a place where we have never been before. A fantasy land of piping-hot mulled wine to comfort us through bitter nights; of lazy days spent in fields with grass up to our chests; and of bonfires on the beach when even a t-shirt feels too heavy on our skin.

Now, I feel have to plug Randy Pausch a bit here, as it was his lecture on achieving childhood dreams that made me realise that none of us should sacrifice what we want to do in the long term for what we have to do right now. For those of you unfamiliar with his story, Randy was a Carnegie Mellon professor who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in September 2006, shortly before his 46th birthday. In August 2007, he was told he could expect a remaining three to six months of good health.

I’m not sure what it would be like to have a terminal illness. I had a conversation about a week ago with a friend where I took the stance that I’d prefer to get hit by a bus to save myself from thinking, “I’m going to die,” every waking minute of my remaining life. Then, someone I knew got hit by a van a few days later. Straight into hospital and intensive care. Died shortly thereafter. Did not even have an opportunity to say goodbye to anyone she cared about. So, here I am, a week on from that conversation, thinking that Randy Pausch was right: getting a chance to leave your legacy to the world is far better than being robbed of that chance.

Randy died on July 25, 2008. Don’t dwell on his death. The living pities the dead, even those we didn’t even know when they were alive. In the year-and-a-half from being diagnosed to passing away, Randy achieved more than most of us do in a lifetime:

  • #1 New York Times best-seller
  • Testified before Congress about the importance of research funding for pancreatic cancer
  • Gave an abridged version of his talk on Oprah
  • Listed by Time as one of the World’s Top 100 Most Influential People in 2008
  • Tens of millions of hits for something other than make-up videos on YouTube

His legacy to me is that a body of work can live on long after our corporeal existence is over. A passion, kindled when the flame is small, can burn as bright as those long-forgotten childhood dreams we once cherished more than any worldly possession.

On reflection, I think if you could ask Randy what his greatest achievement was in life, he would say his three children and the marriage with his wife.