Jobs said, as Isaacson wrote, “I’m about fifty-fifty on believing in God. I really want to believe that something survives, that maybe your consciousness endures."
So what of those final words that Steve Jobs said. They come to us via the eulogy written and given by Steve Jobs' biological sister, novelist Mona Simpson, at his memorial service at the Memorial Church of Stanford University on October 16, and published by the New York Times.
In the eulogy, Simpson, who didn't even meet her elder brother until she was 25, shared a number of anecdotes that had been previously unshared, even to Walter Isaacson, Jobs' biographer.
Some of what she said is below. We recommend you head to the link above to read the full, poetic, gentle look at a man who kept most of his life hidden and private, by choice.
I want to tell you a few things I learned from Steve, during three distinct periods, over the 27 years I knew him. They’re not periods of years, but of states of being. His full life. His illness. His dying.
Steve worked at what he loved. He worked really hard. Every day. [...]
This is what I learned: he was working at this, too. Death didn’t happen to Steve, he achieved it. [...]
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.
Before embarking, he’d looked at his sister Patty, then for a long time at his children, then at his life’s partner, Laurene, and then over their shoulders past them.
Steve’s final words were:
OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW.
Was that Jobs seeing what some who crossed over and came back say they saw? Or was it Jobs imagining still more fantastic ideas for consumers?
Steve Jobs' biography remains atop Amazon.com's bestseller list.
