The Last Lecture: Lessons from Dr. Booker

UPDATE:  After fighting cancer valiantly for 78 days, Dr. Booker died peacefully last 17 April 2014 at around noon, Netherlands time.  She is survived by her beloved Scoopgirl and their 2 beautiful kids, her mother who lives in CA, and many, many friends on both sides of the Atlantic. 

 

In the US, a lot of real schools have a Last Lecture series where professors give a lecture on any topic as if it was their last.  One of the most famous was given by Dr. Randy Pausch in 2007 at Carnegie Mellon University, except he really was dying and it really was his lecture at CMU. 

 

The idea of a Last Lecture at PepSi University seems preposterous and anti-climactic since we haven't had any posts in 4 years, most people have moved on, and the school's raison d'être - Pepa and Silvia - have all but disappeared from our collective consciousness.  We still get some visitors here and there and as long as the PepSi clips are on You Tube, there will people who will discover  the joy of this wonderful couple.

 

So why give a last lecture now? 

 

Dr. Booker is very sick.  Or rather, the real person who playfully and thoughtfully called herself Dr. Booker is dying.  She was diagnosed with sarcomatoid carcinoma, which apparently is a rather rare type of cancer that very few (real) doctors have actually seen, and Wikipedia hardly has anything written about. 

 

Lesson 1:  A rare form of cancer doesn't make one a rare person, but only a rare person like Dr. Booker can face this rare enemy singularly and valiantly. 

 

This is not a lecture about oncology.  Booker has already very eloquently written about it in her own blog.  And I have lost some very special people to the disease, my own mother included, and I have only one sentiment and that is:  Fuck Cancer!

 

No, this is about PepSi University and Booker and the intersections between fictional and real people and how real the fictional people have been, about Pepa and Silvia and everything in between.

 

One thing you will notice when you read Booker's blog is that she lives in the Netherlands.  No, she's not Dutch, she's from Long Beach, CA by way of Worcester, MA.  She rearranged her entire life to be with someone she met... thru yes, PepSi University. In all honesty, I was pretty pissed about the whole situation. We were not supposed to meet anyone from the university in person - my unofficial rule - much less fall in love with them.  But I was only being arrogant, it was never about me, of course.  Booker and Scoopgirl...  Screw the consequences, they made a go of it.  And they've been happy, and I have been happy for them.

 

Lesson 2:  While we are busy looking at all the variables in life, life actually happens and we need to grab it, because there is nothing sadder than finally figuring out all the variables only to realize that the whole model has already changed (Little geek analogy)

 

Have you ever wondered how Silvia would have carried on if Pepa was the one who died?  Neither have I. Five years after Silvia died, I have come to accept that that was how the story was supposed to end, like some of the greatest tragic love stories of all time:  Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Isolde, Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala, Lancelot and Guinevere...  It is as if some of the greatest authors in history couldn't wrap their heads around the idea of a happy ending, that love could only realize its completion in another world, not in this one where pathos and tragedy reign supreme. 

 

Pepa and Silvia, Booker and Scoopgirl, Jane and Natascha...

 

Except Jane and Natascha are real people with real lives and real houses and real cars and real kids. This is so fucking unfair... why would the universe conspire to bring these 2 people together and let them be happy and then very cruelly try to rip their hearts apart?  I must admit that it would make for a compelling love story, but I would rather that Jane and Natascha grow old and boring together.

 

Lesson 3: A verse from Edgar Allan Poe

 

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,

Went envying her and me—

Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,

In this kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of the cloud by night,

Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

 

Once upon a time, PepSi University was a fun, fictional place, and Dr. Booker had a lot to do with it.  She was like a kid who found this fantastic place and made it real: she organized lectures with other contributors, she wrote with her heart on these pages with the openness of  someone seeing life and PepSi for the first time, she really IS Dr. Booker, Provost.

But more importantly, she has been my friend.  We couldn't be more different except for our shared love for Archie comics and Ted Kennedy.  If only I could have half of the kindness and patience Jane has shown me during my most annoying and judgmental times...

Who would have thought that a librarian from the sleepy town of Holden, MA would dive head first into the deep end of the pool and end up on the other side of the Atlantic to live the love she has so often spoken of?  That she did when she did... that still amazes me.

Lesson 4:  Seize the day, believe in love, and take all the happiness for you deserve it.

I do not know when the real story will end, only how it will end, and it sucks.  But I have this feeling that I am still missing a big chunk of the book, The Book of Booker, that it is a story that will have no ending, at least here in PepSi University. 

Lesson 5:  Life is short, but the Internets is eternal.  No, it should be:  Life is short, live it.

Thank you, Dr. Booker, for everything you have done for PepSi University and its students, now scattered in the four corners of a round world.  And thank you for being my friend. 

Lessons from Dr. Booker (to me):

To laugh is to risk appearing a fool,
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental
To reach out to another is to risk involvement,
To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self
To place your ideas and dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss
To love is to risk not being loved in return,
To hope is to risk despair,
To try is to risk failure.

But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing.
He may avoid suffering and sorrow,
But he cannot learn, feel, change, grow or live.
Chained by his servitude he is a slave who has forfeited all freedom.
Only a person who risks is free.

The pessimist complains about the wind;
The optimist expects it to change;
And the realist adjusts the sails.

 

- William Arthur Ward