"Did I sound normal?" I asked Jacque. It was after church one Sunday, and I had preached during the onset of a cold.

Jacque's answer surprised me and blessed me and made me burst out laughing in the sanctuary.

"You never sound normal," she said.

Neurologist and naturalist Oliver Sachs said, not long before he died, "There will be nobody like us when we are gone. But then there is nobody like anybody, ever. When people die, they cannot be replaced. They leave holes that cannot be filled. It is the genetic and neural fate of every human being to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live (her) own life, to die (their) own death."

He also said, "I do go my own way. I am not entirely easy to decipher."

As to what he experienced as he approached his own death, Oliver Sachs said he felt "shock, sadness, fear, and mostly gratitude."

All quotations of Dr. Sachs are from the 2019 film by ric burns, Oliver Sachs: His Own Life.