Battle with cancer

Diagnosis

In July 1977, Marley was found to have cancer in a wound on his right big toe, which he thought was from a football (soccer) injury. Urban legends have since told that it was the British television personality Danny Baker who had caused the injury during a celebrity football match. The wound would not completely heal, and his toenail later fell off during a football game. It was then that the correct diagnosis was made. Marley actually had a form of skin cancer, malignant melanoma, which grew under his toenail.

Marley was advised to get his toe amputated, but he refused because of his Rastafarian beliefs that the body must be whole, that to have an amputation would be a sin, that his faith would ensure him living forever regardless of the cancer and because he saw medical doctors as samfai, confidence men who cheat the gullible by pretending to have the power of witchcraft. He also was concerned about the impact the operation would have on his dancing. Still, Marley based this refusal primarily on his Rastafarian beliefs, saying, "Rasta no abide amputation. I don't allow a man to be dismantled." He did agree to undergo some minor surgery to try to excise the cancer, which was kept secret from the wider public.

Collapse and treatment

The cancer eventually spread to Marley's brain, lungs, liver, and stomach. He later collapsed while jogging in NYC's Central Park, having recently played two shows at Madison Square Garden as part of his fall 1980 Uprising Tour (the remainder of which was subsequently cancelled). Bob Marley played his final concert in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on 23 September, 1980; the live version of "Redemption Song" on Songs of Freedom was recorded at this show.[2] Marley sought medical help, and decided to go to Munich in order to receive treatment from cancer specialist Josef Issels, but the cancer had already progressed to the terminal stage.

Death

Marley wanted to spend his final days in Jamaica but he became too ill on the flight home from Germany and he was forced to leave the plane in Miami so that he could receive immediate medical attention. He died at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Miami, Florida on May 11, 1981. His final words to his son Ziggy were, "Money can't buy life." Bob Marley received the honor of a State funeral in Jamaica. It was a dignified funeral with combined elements of Ethiopian Orthodoxy and Rastafari. He is buried in a crypt at Nine Miles, near his birthplace, with his Gibson Les Paul, a soccer ball, a cannabis bud, and a Bible.