TERRE HAUTE — Even if you never read “The Last Lecture” or “Highest Duty,” Jeffrey Zaslow still says to tell your family that you love them.
It was Tuesday afternoon, hours before his speech in Tilson Auditorium as part of Indiana State University’s visiting author series, and Zaslow remarked on similarities between professor Randy Pausch and Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, subjects of his books, “The Last Lecture” and “Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters.” Both men were so extraordinary in their regularity that it’s striking how a moment could turn their lives.
But most inside the packed auditorium were already familiar with the message Tuesday night, as the best-selling author regaled the ISU community with his stories about stories now in millions of books across the globe.
For Pausch, that moment came when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, the breed least likely to be survived. The 46-year-old Carnegie Mellon professor was a father of three, and the death sentence changed the plans of which he’d dreamt for his family. But instead of crawling under covers to await the end, Pausch, among other end-of-life-choices, chose to offer a final lecture at his school in September of 2007.
Meanwhile, Zaslow, a Carnegie Mellon alumnus, was writing his Wall Street Journal column “Moving On” about life transitions. When he heard of Pausch’s plans, he drove 300 miles to cover it as his editors didn’t feel it would be worth the cost of a plane ticket.
But the 800-word column and video story Zaslow produced drew global attention, culminating in “The Last Lecture,” which sold out of its first 400,000 copies in a matter of days, bumping the next press run to 4 million. It’s now translated into 45 languages.
The theme of the lecture was how to achieve one’s childhood dreams, and as the terminally-ill Pausch performed plyometric push-ups for his audience, he pointed out that everybody’s dying of something.
“He was the most alive person in that room,” Zaslow recalled Tuesday evening, remarking on the irony.
But after Pausch completed his offerings of wisdom on how to achieve a childhood dream, his parting words revealed his true goal, that the lecture wasn’t for the audience, but for his children. Taped, recorded and documented, it was a final message to the children he’d never get to raise.
The story, character and content, elicited letters and e-mail from across the globe, ranging from reconnecting spouses to those who had changed their mind about suicide, Zaslow said.
Another person touched by the book was Sullenberger, who read it while traveling on an airplane. But the career aviator couldn’t have known then that on Jan. 15, 2009 he would be piloting U.S. Airways Flight 1549, that the engines would fail, and a lifetime of experiences would be summoned for an emergency landing in the Hudson River.
“I love the story of his life as much as the story of how he saved all those lives,” Zaslow said of “Sully,” who’s autobiography would emerge as “Highest Duty.”
The son of a man who committed suicide grew up with a desire to save others. Unable to have biological children with his wife, the couple adopted two daughters. Those anecdotes, as well as the ones in between, demonstrate how a life of integrity prepares one for action in an emergency, book critics would acclaim.
And that’s what interests Zaslow.
“It’s kind of cool to write books,” he said earlier when asked about his own career. An editor at his college newspaper, Zaslow’s dues were paid covering commodities at the Chicago bureau of the Wall Street Journal, a beat he described as the worst in American journalism. “I know nothing of finances,” he laughed.
But the reporting led to a column, and that column led to the chance to replace Ann Landers at the Chicago Sun-Times for 14 years before returning to the Journal where he now writes “Moving On.”
Zaslow has also authored “The Girls from Ames,” a nonfiction book about a group of 11 girls and their friendship that begun in Ames, Iowa, and carried on through adulthood.
“I think matters of the heart are what define us,” he said, reiterating that his advice to all is hug friends and family, just in case that’s the last thing they ever get to do.
Brian Boyce can be reached at 812-231-4253 or brian.boyce@tribstar.com.
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Author brings message of love to ISU
Wall Street Journal columnist Jeffrey Zaslow visits Terre Haute at part of visiting author series
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