A Tribute to Oliver Sacks

By Frances Kolarek —

Frances Kolarek-150 wideHe has been called “The poet Laureate of Medicine.” And over the years I have read his books with fascination. A neurologist, his stories of patients always aroused my curiosity; take, for instance, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. 

But what elevated Dr. Sacks to Hero in my pantheon was a column he wrote a couple of years ago entitled “The Joy of Old Age. (No Kidding.)”

I welcomed another adventurer who, like me, wants to celebrate rather than denigrate, age.

“Eighty!” he wrote, “I can hardly believe it. I often feel that life is about to begin, only to realize it is almost over.

“At 80 the marks of decay are all too visible. One’s reactions are a little slower, names more frequently elude one, and one’s energies must be husbanded, but even so, one may often feel full of energy and life and not at all ‘old.’”

He continues: “I do not think of old age as an ever grimmer time that one must somehow endure and make the best of, but as a time of leisure and freedom, freed from the factitious urgencies of earlier days, free to explore whatever I wish, and to bind the thoughts and feelings of a lifetime together. I am looking forward to being 80.”

Two years later his life took a left turn. He recently announced that he was suffering a fatal cancer, but he meets the news head on.

“I feel a sudden clear focus and perspective,” he explains. “There is no time for anything inessential . . .

“But there will be time . . . for some fun (and even some silliness, as well).

“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.”

His recently-published autobiography, On the Move: A Life, has been enthusiastically reviewed. Thank you, Dr. Sacks for this gift of your story to keep me company after you have said good night, and left the party.

Let me know what you think. Drop me a line at CollBlog2@gmail.com.