Bryan called me and told me earlier that today Randy Pausch passed away from complications due to pancreatic cancer. Carnegie Mellon has a lovely article on their main site today about him. It’s terribly sad. I’m just glad he was able to give and record his last lecture as well as the amazing feat of getting that book published, too. All I’ve really thought about through all of this is his children. I hope they, through what Randy has left behind, come to know and love their father in new and different ways as they grow older. In a way his lecture and book have given him a sort of timeless immortality, and they’ve also helped his words reach out to millions of others who would otherwise not have even known about him.

I never knew him at Carnegie Mellon but in getting to know him through the news media and through Carnegie Mellon’s news articles and his website, I feel connected with him in a strange way. We both were students at CMU (in different programs in different decades) but we experienced that same particularly unusual community; it’s a strange connection, and I will miss him for that. I don’t ever like hearing about the death of a member of the CMU academic or alumni community; we’re a community and it’s odd to lose a member of it, as disparate, strange, and distant as we all are from one another.

I give my sincerest condolences and best wishes for the future to his family.