Much has been written about Steve Jobs in the past few weeks since his passing but the best piece I have come across is the eulogy by his sister Mona Simpson. Mona Simpson is an author and professor of writing and delivered this eulogy on Oct. 16 at his memorial service at the Memorial Church of Stanford University. It must be read in it entirety (NYTimes: A sister’s eulogy for Steve Jobs) but the thing that stands out in this eulogy was just how Jobs was truly a person who understood the here-now-ness and enchantment of every moment. The feeling of wonder that is at the heart of creativity, of living life to its fullest.
Read the entire article for your self… (as one of my friends said, it is a “lump-in-throat kinda moving”) but what I want to highlight is how it ends. Mona describes his last battle against ugliness, his final battle with cancer and says:
But with that will, that work ethic, that strength, there was also sweet Steve’s capacity for wonderment, the artist’s belief in the ideal, the still more beautiful later.
Steve’s final words, hours earlier, were monosyllables, repeated three times.
… Steve’s final words were: OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW.
Oh Wow! What a way to live. What a way to go.
This is so beautiful and moving. Who would have ever thought that Steve Jobs was such a romantic. Its also wonderful to know that he was driven by beauty and love.
Looking beyond everybody ia like seeing some glowing, unique thing at the end of his life-tunnel. It must be a transcendental experience for Steve Jobs ! Ms Simpson put it beautifully– “a climbing “. His breathlessness or heavy breathing just before death seemed to her as “steep path “! At times death is painfully beautiful. Great man-great death !!