In my youth in London, Oliver, Uncle Ollie, was a towering figure, with a massive build, a 60-inch chest, 22-inch neck and an insatiable appetite. Clad in enormously heavy black leathers and shod in size 14 boots, he took me for rides on the back seat of his gorgeous BMW motorbike whenever we got together. While living in San Francisco in the early 1960s, where he was a neurology resident (junior doctor), he lifted weights and became a state champion, squatting officially with 600lb (272kg).
Oliver adored nature and photography. He periodically sent us postcards and photos of his exotic motorbike rides into the California deserts and mountainous sierra, triggering a deep longing in me to live there – which I did, following in his footsteps, 20 years later. He also loved water, swimming great distances daily. I braved freezing waters in outdoor pools around London in order to be able to spend time with him. With his vast build, Herculean strength and suitable layer of natural blubber, the frigid water was always the perfect temperature for Oliver. He strode in without a shudder and swam off steadily like a whale with me in tow as a small, shivering porpoise.
In contrast to my late father, David, Oliver’s elder brother by nine years, who was stentorian, sartorial and effervescently self-confident, Oliver was stuttering, shambolic and diffident, and spoke quietly, hesitantly and sometimes not at all. However, he had much to say about his patients and their illnesses and disabilities; he was their defender and advocate from early on.
Oliver possessed an immense vocabulary and was exceptionally expressive and eloquent in ordinary, everyday conversation. His turns of phrase were rich and memorable in simile, metaphor, irony and humour. He peppered his observations and dialogue effortlessly and unaffectedly with quotes from philosophers, poets and writers on science and the humanities spanning 2,500 years. He was a natural, compelling raconteur and a person of extraordinary knowledge, high intellect and humanism.
Rarely would our discussions involve business or politics. Indeed, Oliver used to boast that he hadn’t read a newspaper since 1947, but actually, he was quite well informed. Ultimately, however, and probably like Einstein, worldly matters and affairs didn’t really concern him. He aspired to shine a light on madness, mental illness, unusual disorders, the dispossessed, the disenfranchised, the forgotten. That became his bailiwick and mission in life: he would tell their stories to the world because they needed to be told.
One day in the summer of 1967, Oliver was in London for a few weeks and came over for what he said would be a quick bite. During lunch, he quietly emptied the dinner table and then the refrigerator. At some point, he asked my mother, Lily, whether he could borrow her portable typewriter for a few minutes to write a quick note. My mother showed Oliver to her study where he spent the next several days typing hectically until he had fashioned the raw manuscript for what would become his very first book, Migraine. This book represented an early step in building bridges between illness and wellness.
Some years on, after a long, chilly swim off Long Island, we sat on the beach and discussed life. Oliver, by now sporting a beard fit for an Assyrian king, said that he saw himself like a comet, hurtling through the neurological heavens, observing things as he went speeding by, constantly in motion and not bound to a home. Some time later, he described himself as a Victorian diarist, probably the most apt description and a role of which he was justifiably proud. He observed and listened, recording and writing millions of words by hand over the course of 70 years.
While striving for recognition, Oliver was of modest means. When my father asked him why he earned one-tenth of what his colleagues did, Oliver admitted to never charging patients for visits. As my father reeled in amazement at this declaration, Oliver continued, saying that after seeing patients for an hour or two, he felt he had learned so much from them that he could not possibly conceive of charging anything at all; indeed, he thought that he should pay them instead!
Oliver loved family and was always strongly connected to his. He possessed, too, a strong sense of genealogy and belonging. He particularly enjoyed being a self-styled “grand-uncle” to my three sons, who adored him in much the way I did when I was young. They recall fondly his love of rocks and metals, and his pop quiz on osmium and lithium over sushi and green tea.
Uncle Oliver was a beloved star in our family long before Hollywood discovered Awakenings, a unique relation and an uncle without peer. His passing represents the end of an era and is deeply saddening: he was the last of the four Sacks brothers to depart. I fully expect, however, that he has become the comet he described to me on the beach, hurtling through the heavens and observing in wonderment and awe.
