What would you say if you knew it was the last time you’d get to say it?

Jeffrey Zaslow talked about that topic during a lecture Monday night in Warriner Hall’s Plachta Auditorium,

Zaslow, a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, told many stories about Randy and about his optimism and the way he took nothing for granted even in his last few days. Zaslow said Pausch spent long days in the hospital near the end and that he didn’t have much contact with him during that time.

“I felt like I was on shore and he was floating out to sea,” Zaslow said.

Zaslow is a co-author of “The Last Lecture,” a book about former Carnegie Mellon University professor Randy Pausch, who died of pancreatic cancer about giving his famous “last lecture.”

On Sept. 17, 2007, Pausch gave his last lecture as a professor at Carnegie Mellon to a packed auditorium titled “How to Achieve your childhood Dreams.” Zaslow attended the event to write an article about it in the Wall Street Journal and then went on to write a book with Pausch.

“(Randy) was the most alive person in the room,” Zaslow said.

The speech was sponsored by the Mortar Board Society and the Honors Program.

“We got in touch with Jeffrey Zaslow in the fall of 2008,” said Mike Martinchek, a member of the Mortar Board Society and a Petoskey senior.

Sara Yoder, the president of the Mortar Board Society, said she is hoping Zaslow’s speech will get faculty here to mimic it.

“We wanted to generate a spark for getting a last lecture series going for faculty at CMU,” the Clio senior said.

Pausch told Zaslow his stories by talking to him through an ear piece as he went on his hour long bike rides he took for exercise, Zaslow said. Zaslow would sit on the other end with his laptop typing up ideas and stories to use for the book.

“Writing the last chapter was the hardest thing we had to do,” Zaslow said.

As the story of Randy’s life unfolded audience members couldn’t help but shed some tears.

“I thought the lecture was really impressive,” said Clinton Township sophomore Stephanie Jaczkowski. “I’ve had friends with cancer and I don’t even know how my life would have been without them.”

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E-mail the author: Jessica Kloeckner