X-Message-Number: 12763
From: "Marty Kardon" <>
References: <>
Subject: And what of the survivors?
Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1999 09:21:20 -0500

    I recently attended an unveiling which, in Judaism, is a ceremony 6
months or so after a funeral when the headstone is unveiled and the mourners
gather once again, after the pain of the loss has receded, to reflect,
remember and bring closure to their loss.

    As I watched my cousins straighten up and walk away from the graveside I
could see that they were at last able to put some distance between the loss
of their mother and their own lives.  I began to wonder if and how that
works for the families of persons in cryonic suspension.

    It seems to me that there is not the same chance for "closure", assuming
of course that this is desireable and attainable.  How do children adjust to
a loss, how does a spouse move on to gather the remnants of a new life when
their dear one is gone but maybe not really dead?  Since cryonic suspension
is unproven and, depending upon who is talking, ultimately possible or the
province of the weird and misguided, the survivors are left in a nether
world with respect to their departed family.

    Now I know the knee jerk response is that if you really love that person
the prospect of having them back outweighs the unresolved, unclosed status
of suspension and that, ultimately, we live as we dream, alone and that
death or suspension is our own choice and the heck with anyone who doesn't
like this.  There are easy intellectual answers to all these issues but the
feeling, emotive reality can be quite different and as important.

    On the other hand I also have no doubt that if some tragedy befell my
children or wife I would take whatever shreds of hope I could to recover
them later.

    I saw, however, at the unveiling that in someways a cryonic suspension
could prolong and perpetuate the pain of loss loved ones feel. This would be
particuarly sad if revival is never accomplished. All pain, no gain.

    I'd be interested to hear what others have experienced with loved ones
in suspension.  I believe the Prof. Ettinger and Saul Kent have mothers in
suspension. Have there been families with younger spouses and/or children
who have done this?  How have they fared?

Marty Kardon
 (e-mail)

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