Oliver Sacks has written a beautiful, heart-breaking essay on his terminal cancer diagnosis

Up until a month ago, popular author and neurologist Oliver Sacks was in great health, even swimming a mile every day. Then, everything changed: the 81-year-old was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer.

In a beautiful op-ed, published today in the New York Times, he describes his state of mind and how he'll face his final moments:

Over the last few days, I have been able to see my life as from a great altitude, as a sort of landscape, and with a deepening sense of the connection of all its parts. This does not mean I am finished with life.

On the contrary, 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.

This will involve audacity, clarity and plain speaking; trying to straighten my accounts with the world. But there will be time, too, for some fun (and even some silliness, as well).

The entire essay is worth your time. Read it here.

Read more from Vox:

• How Americans' refusal to talk about death hurts the elderly

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