Oliver Sacks's Farewell Essay on His Own Dying

Oliver Sacks was a neurologist who wrote many bestselling books. In 2015, he used his writing to tell the public that he was dying. This article describes what he wrote and what came after. It does not reproduce his essays, which are copyrighted and can be read in The New York Times archive and in his book Gratitude.

What did he announce?

That his cancer was terminal. In a New York Times essay called “My Own Life,” published on February 19, 2015, Sacks wrote that a few weeks earlier he had learned he had multiple metastases in his liver. Nine years before, he said, doctors had found a rare tumor in his eye, an ocular melanoma. Writers Write reports that treatment of the eye tumor cost him the vision in that eye, and that he was one of the unlucky 2% of patients in whom this cancer spreads. He wrote that the cancer occupied a third of his liver and that its advance might be slowed but could not be halted. He was 81.

What did the essay talk about?

Fear, focus, and gratitude. Sacks wrote that he could not pretend to be without fear. He also described a sudden clear sense of perspective, in which he felt there was no time for anything inessential. Salon described the essay as one in which the writer reveals both his fears and his gratitude.

What happened next?

He kept writing. SuperSummary notes that a treatment called embolization, which cuts off blood supply to tumors, destroyed most of the cancer for a time, but a CT scan in July showed it had regrown and spread. In July 2015 he published “My Periodic Table,” which, according to readers’ notes on Goodreads, relates his life and treatment to the chemical elements. On August 14, 2015, he published “Sabbath,” which one reviewer describes as exploring his Jewish upbringing and his complicated relationship with religion. It appeared two weeks before his death. Sacks died at home on August 30, 2015, at 82, according to the Columbia Journalism Review. His memoir On the Move was published the same year.

What is Gratitude?

A short book that gathers his last four essays. The German edition’s publication notes list the original dates: “Mercury” (also titled “The Joy of Old Age”) on July 6, 2013, written for his 80th birthday, then “My Own Life,” “My Periodic Table,” and “Sabbath” in 2015. A library record for the Knopf edition says the first piece looked ahead to old age, and that he received his terminal diagnosis about eighteen months later.

What can readers take from it?

Not a method. Sacks describes his own experience and does not tell others how to die. People respond to a terminal diagnosis in many ways, and his way, to keep working and writing, will not suit everyone. Still, the essays show one person turning attention to what mattered most once time was short. For related stories, see When You Know You’re Dying, What Makes Life Worth Living? and What Warren Zevon’s Final Year Teaches Us About Facing Death Honestly.

Where can I learn more?

See What Does a Good Ending Actually Look Like?, Memento Mori, and Words for a Mortal Life.