"Gratitude"

The cover art looks
like a stylized sunset.

Last February, beloved neurologist and author Oliver Sacks wrote a New York Times op-ed ("My own life") about his thoughts upon being diagnosed with metastatic melanoma and learning that he could expect to live for only a few more months. "Gratitude" is a collection of this and three other essays on aging, the search for meaning, and dying with grace.

Sacks wrote the first essay, The joy of old age, on his 80th birthday (before the diagnosis) and expresses gratitude for reaching that milestone and his hopes for his remaining time.

When my time comes, I hope I can die in harness, as Francis Crick did. When he was told that his colon cancer had returned, at first he said nothing; he simply looked into the distance for a minute and then resumed his previous train of thought. When pressed about his diagnosis a few weeks later, he said, "Whatever has a beginning must have an ending." When he died, at 88, he was still fully engaged in his most creative work.

The second essay, My own life, was written shortly after his diagnosis and expresses his immense gratitude for a fulfilling life and the nine healthy years he had after his first melanoma treatment.

I feel intensely alive, and I want and hope in the time that remains to deepen my friendships, to say farewell to those I love, to write more, to travel if I have the strength, to achieve new levels of understanding and insight.

The third essay, My periodic table, describes Sacks's tradition of taking a keepsake for each year of life: a sample of the element whose atomic number matches his age.

Bismuth is element 83. I do not think I will see my 83rd birthday, but I feel there is something hopeful, something encouraging, about having "83" around. Moreover, I have a soft spot for bismuth, a modest gray metal, often unregarded, ignored, even by metal lovers. My feeling as a doctor for the mistreated or marginalized extends into the inorganic world and finds a parallel in my feeling for bismuth.

In the fourth and final essay, Sabbath, Sacks describes his orthodox Jewish upbringing, his disillusionment with and then return to its traditions much later in life, and his own rest.

I find my thoughts, increasingly, not on the supernatural or spiritual, but on what is meant by living a good and worthwhile life — achieving a sense of peace within oneself. I find my thoughts drifting to the Sabbath, the day of rest, the seventh day of the week, and perhaps the seventh day of one’s life as well, when one can feel that one’s work is done, and one may, in good conscience, rest.

This is my favorite quote from all four essays:

Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.

My highly subjective rating: insightful and moving, this collection of articles is well worth the few minutes it will take to read. Thank you, Dr. Sacks, for a life well lived and for sharing this part of your 82 years of wisdom.