The last hours of Steve Jobs' life were filled with his wonderment at his love for his family, according to the Apple founder's sister, Mona Simpson.
Simpson described Jobs' death in a eulogy she delivered on Oct. 16 at the Apple exec's memorial service at Stanford.
The touching piece was published Monday in The New York Times and offers a glimpse into how Jobs chose to live, and how illness chose his death.
Simpson says she didn't meet her brother until she was 25 after Jobs, who had been given up for adoption before she was born, tracked her down at the magazine where she worked. It was 1985 and by then, Jobs was already a successful entrepreneur while Simpson was a struggling writer.
"I don't remember much of what we said that first day, only that he felt like someone I'd pick to be a friend," she says.
Simpson goes on to paint a picture of Jobs as a dedicated, hard worker who enjoyed his success but who also committed to staying grounded. He kept a spare house, she says, that was free of the usual excesses of wealth.
"Their house didn't intimidate with art or polish; in fact, for many of the first years I knew Steve and Lo together, dinner was served on the grass, and sometimes consisted of just one vegetable," she says.
After describing Jobs' love for his wife and his children, Simpson the lays out in detail the final hours of his life.
She says the day before he died, Jobs called for her to come to his bedside. He was alert and talkative that day until the early afternoon, when his breathing became "severe, deliberate, purposeful."
She recounts: "This is what I learned: he was working at this, too. Death didn't happen to Steve, he achieved it."
Jobs slept through the night, but struggled more the next day to get his breath.
"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," she says.
Simpson ends her piece by revealing Jobs' final words. A few hours before he died, she says, Jobs said goodbye to his family by gazing at each of them in turn: his sister Patty, then each of his three children, then his wife Laurene -- "his life's partner."
He then looked over their shoulders past them and repeated one phrase three times.
"Steve's final words were: Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow."
