Along the long way, I picked up a book called “The Last Lecture” written by Randy Pausch who was a computer science professor and delivered his last lecture at Carnegie Mellon University. It became really his last lecture because he died of pancreatic cancer within a year. He already knew at his lecture that death claimed his life in a matter of months. But on the stage, he was youthful, energetic, cheerful and amazingly funny. He seemed invincible for a brief moment. He began the last lecture by saying, “We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.” What amazed me most was that he seemed to so focus on life that nothing seemed to matter. It was all about living not dying.
After closing the last page of the book, I watched his last lecture through YouTube. It was truly inspiring and then I realized what I needed to celebrate. I called my friend who was a main caregiver and sister of the one who died of brain tumor. I visited her house and gave the book to her. We sat at the kitchen table and talked about the deceased, looking after a sixteen-month-old baby. The deceased used to say the baby was a buddy to her. It was a warm and sunny afternoon. The grass looked greener; the wind was pleasant; squirrels ran up the tree; a butterfly flew around; the baby was laughing and screaming. A little chaos… and I knew life went on like spring birds and the happy baby.
I have believed that the Good News is all about saving life and celebrating the new life. My friend’s death has brought me again what it means to celebrate life in the midst of suffering and death, not just pretending to be not afraid and strong but sincerely celebrating with tears and joyful hearts. It is liberating to know that life goes on, growing, changing as much as dying. It would be always too short just to celebrate life in our lifetime, focusing on life and learning from death.
Now it makes more sense to me, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies…” because I see the acorn that needs to be cracked open in order to become an oak; the cocoon that needs to be split in order for the butterfly to emerge; the candle whose flaming wick melts the wax in order that light and heat happen. And we all come from our mother and father’s suffering—laboring and toil. Life goes on, constantly teaching us there would be only partial or no life without suffering. We need to practice death in order to live; people should be in the dying business while they are alive. In other words, “Die before you die so when you die, you won’t die.” That’s why Jesus says, “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life will preserve it for eternal life” for our attachment to life would blind and force us to be afraid of death and run away from it.
But if we believe that the Good News is all about celebrating life and Jesus himself is the Good News, there is nothing to be afraid. Surely death had ruled this world, claiming everyone within it. But its power is over. Jesus’ death will not entail the universal fate of going down into the earth. In his death he will be lifted up from the earth. It is this kind of death, death as a transformative process, that will attract all people to Jesus. Death as extinction will give way to death as exultation. This will be the kind of death Jesus will die, and this kind of death will draw all people to him.
The last lecture Jesus taught for us continues on through our beloved deceased and my friend whom we loved and lost. My friend is no longer where she was before; she is now wherever we are truly. I confess: life goes on, never ends.