I got this in an email this evening. It’s other people’s words, but it was delivered by Robin Williams in his 1996 film Jack, about a boy who ages at four times the rate of other people – appearing about 40 years of age when he was 10. It’s his college graduation speech as valedictorian of his class. The video clip is available at YouTube, but just read the words by screenwriters James DeMonaco and Gary Nadeau that serve as perhaps the best eulogy I think I’ve ever read:
I don’t have very much time these days, so I’ll make it quick – like my life.
You know as we come to the end of this phase of our life, we find ourselves trying to remember the good times and trying to forget the bad times. We find ourselves thinking about the future. We start to worry, thinking “What am I gonna to do? Where am I gonna to be in ten years?”
But I say to you, hey, look at me. Please, don’t worry so much. Because in the end, none of us have very long on this earth. Life is fleeting. And if you’re ever distressed, cast your eyes to the summer sky when the stars are strung across the velvety night. And when a shooting star streaks through the blackness turning night into day, make a wish and think of me.
And make your life spectacular.
I know I did.