Sacks was clearly a great doctor in many ways. But he'll probably be better known, and remembered, for popularizing science and medicine in a way that we rarely see: He describes people's symptoms carefully, but also sympathetically. He treats patients using science, which is supposed to be dispassionate, but does so with what's obviously a great deal of care. And he reveals science to us, not as a cold set of rules that govern the world, but as something that provides us with an infinitely large number of wondrous, almost miraculous, combinations of events.

Sacks articulated -- perhaps not explicitly -- that science isn't merely reductionist, cold, logical, and unemotional. He loved learning new things, and was clearly overjoyed to learn, understand, and appreciate the amazing universe in which we live.

It has been many years since I read, "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat," but I remember loving every page. His later books aren't as famous, but his writing continued to be enchanting and inviting, even when the subjects weren't necessarily my cup of tea.

We in Western societies tend to shut down discussions of death, and what it means. The writing that Sacks produced over the last year have been some of the most poignant, chilling, and inspiring essays that he produced. It's sad that he's gone, but I'm grateful that he shared so much of his work, and his life (and ultimately death) with all of us.