Book Review “Dream New Dreams”
—Jai Pausch, published: May 2012
The widow of Randy Pausch who inspired thousands, with his Carnegie Mellon lecture, that became a subsequent book, “The Last Lecture”, has written her own memoir of the painful journey of his illness and her role as a wife, caregiver and mother, in the book “Dream New Dreams”. I know I had a picture of Randy’s illness being a inspirational, moving and fairly simple goodbye. With very little sugar-coating, Jai takes us into the journey that is probably very typical and very specific in the path that a it takes to fight a diagnosis, to try and keep a young family going forward and to keep hope that they will end up with a happy ending. Jai starts with their love story and then takes us step by step in the 2 ½ year journey of diagnosis to passing. I think other caregivers would take comfort in seeing that they are not alone in the difficulties from every part of life that one faces when fighting an illness. If the Pausch family had to add financial worries into this picture, it might have seemed insurmountable. Even if you are not a caregiver in this type of situation, it will serve as an honest look at what families, dealing with a critical care issue, are dealing with in their households. –Cathy Boomer