Gratitude

I have read three books over the last four days, returning, rather fervently, to my love of reading – a love I’ve nurtured since I was a child.

“Gratitude” by Oliver Sacks is the most recent of the three. It provided one of the most arresting passages of the countless I’ve read, written while Sacks was face to face with death after a terminal cancer diagnosis. The power in his words is a reminder of why I love reading, and why I am so appreciative for every day of my life.

“There will be no one like us when we are gone, but then there is no one like anyone else, ever. When people die, they cannot be replaced. They leave holes that cannot be filled, for it is the fate – the genetic and neural fate – of every human being to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death.

I cannot pretend that I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and given something in return; I have read and traveled and written. I have had an intercourse with the world, the special intercourse of writers and readers.

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.”

Ian

This post was originally published on April 2nd, 2019