Editor's note. Part Two talks about an exciting new resource that you will want your friends and family to know about. Please send your thoughts on either Part One or Part Two to daveandrusko@hotmail.com

Over the weekend, I suspect that a sizable percentage of our TN&V audience learned of the death of Randy Pausch, the charismatic professor at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Pausch became an international phenomenon thanks to a stunningly engaging "final lecture" he delivered to students last September.

While it was news to me, evidently professors are occasionally asked to assume they were about to deliver their last lecture and to use that occasion to impart whatever wisdom they care to share. A computer scientist/virtual reality pioneer, Pausch accepted just such a challenge from Carnegie Mellon only to learn soon afterwards that he had pancreatic cancer and had only months to live. We will talk subsequently about that remarkable September 2007 "Last Lecture," (seen by millions on the Internet), the best-selling book of the same title that ensued, and what we can learn from all of it.

I learned of Pausch's death Saturday on the way back from our vacation when I picked up the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and saw the front-page story.

In that very same newspaper, on the front page of the "B" section, my eye was snared by another headline: "Mourners gather to remember the life of Kia Johnson."

Kia was not famous. She was young, single, and pregnant when she was brutally murdered (allegedly by Andrea Curry-Demus, 38), her uterus slashed open, and her baby stolen.  Kim's body "was found in Ms. Curry-Demus' apartment after the older woman went to the hospital with a newborn, claiming to be its mother," according to the Post-Gazette's Ann Rodgers. (The baby is reportedly doing well.)

If you Google "Randy Pausch," there are 2,8000,000 hits and growing. Mourned by millions, Pausch, 47 at the time of his death, will, if anything, likely be more famous in death than in life.

Kia was 18 years old and 36-weeks pregnant when her life was savagely taken from her earlier this month. At her funeral Friday were 150 mourners. After this past weekend's press coverage, there will likely be few mentions of a woman who apparently had turned her life around prior to her unbelievably violent and shocking death. Few, that is, that are not linked to the trial of Ms. Curry-Demus who has been charged with homicide, unlawful restraint, and kidnapping.

What struck me beyond the simplicity of the emotion-packed funeral was the attitude of the pastor and many of the mourners as quoted in Rodgers story.

According to Rodgers, The Rev. Earl Jones, pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Elizabeth, Pennsylvania, "said a horror such as Ms. Johnson's murder would wreak more destruction if people gave into hatred.

"'Do you really want to be comforted? It begins with forgiveness,' he said. 'I know right now that is the last thing on your minds ... But when that child grows up, he is going to need each and every one of you.'"

Kia's mother also forgave Curry-Demus. "If she hadn't taken the baby to the hospital, we would never have been able to find my daughter," she said.

The famous Pausch was celebrated on "Oprah" and in a famous Primetime interview with ABC's Diane Sawyers. (Indeed, Sawyer is doing a follow-up program on Pausch this evening for Primetime.)

A good, decent, and loving man Pausch's self-admitted biggest hurtle, prior to his diagnosis, was dealing with the kind of outsized ego that often accompanies extraordinary brilliance and a string of accomplishments.

Kia was, like most of us, an unknown. She was celebrated for volunteering "to help children and the homeless at the Salvation Army Corps where she had worshipped." The Sunday before she was murdered she gave her life--all of her life--over to Christ, according to Capt. Sean Barton, her pastor at the Salvation Army.

We are poorer for the losses of Randy Pausch and Kia Johnson. One may have traveled in famous circles and the other in relative anonymity, but the world is a richer place for both their contributions.

Part Two -- Invaluable New Resources