X-Message-Number: 3514
Subject: CRYONICS: I'm ready to sign, but my wife is against it.
Date: Tue, 20 Dec 1994 01:59:34 -0600
From: Will Dye <>
Well, I've fought the idea as best I could, but I've finally concluded
that cryonics is a better choice than the alternatives. I've received
a packet from CryoCare and others, and I'm about to go through the
process of selecting an organization (BTW, I haven't received a packet
from Alcor yet, did you get my request?). I've skipped over the
political debates, so I don't know much about the Alcor/CryoCare split
except that there are some lingering post-divorce pains all around.
As soon as I have the time (which may be a while), I'll browse the back
issues of Cryonet's politics thread and try to figure out what happened
and if it will affect my choice of organizations.
But that's not why I'm writing. I'm writing because my wife is 100%
against my going into cryosuspension.
She thinks the whole idea is sick, twisted, and generally (her term)
"spooky". Her reaction caught me completely off-guard. I had never
personally encountered strong opposition to cryonics before. Most of
the reactions of my friends have been negative, but only mildly so. Up
until now, I found it difficult to believe that there is so much
opposition in the medical and political fields. If there's a positive
aspect to all this, I suppose it's that I'm being educated first-hand
about the political difficulties in your field.
To this audience, the above paragraphs might give you the idea that
my wife is closed-minded, ignorant, or generally Not Nice. It's
important to note that this is not the case. She is more intelligent
than me, insatiably curious, and lovingly devoted to me and our
2-year-old daughter. So why is this happening? Am I the one that's
wrong?
Part of the answer may be that she has had some difficult times lately,
mostly concerning the subject of death. Our family has been devastated
emotionally and financially by cancer. After a long, losing struggle,
her brother died in January from brain cancer, leaving his wife and
three children, ages 5, 3, and 1. We were still recovering from that
when her mom was diagnosed with cancer. Her mom is in the final stages
now.
It's not the big problems that get to you, it's all the little problems
on top of the big problems.
We've got a lot of other little problems, such as two jobs and a kid.
My wife has handled all this as well as could be expected, but she's
just wasn't in the mood for her husband to announce that he wants
to spend part of our limited money to become a corpse-sicle. My hope
is that she will start to accept it as time goes by.
I've followed this list for several years now, and considered the
matter very carefully. My mind is made up: this is what I want.
I dearly love my family, and I usually put their needs & feelings
above mine, but on this issue I'm going ahead irregardless of their
opposition. I shudder at the thought of causing them pain, and I don't
know what to do to fix this... but I'm not turning back.
I guess I'm writing this as an appeal to those who may encounter her if
I were to go into suspension. Fight whatever legal battles you have to,
but please take the time to understand that I'm making a terrible
situation (my "death", so soon after the death of other loved ones) even
worse for her. She will have a hard time going through the mourning
process when I'm in suspension, especially when I've done it over her
objections.
The least-worst reaction I've had is when I describe it as "donating
my body to science". Somehow it seemed to help when I said that
revival wasn't as important as doing something to advance scientific
knowledge. She knows I wanted to be a scientist, and this would be
one way for me to do something that I couldn't do in my career.
That's why I'm still considering a brain-only suspension. Mike Darwin
graphically convinced me that it was far more risky than using the
brain's handy built-in carrying case, but if I donate several organs
to medicine for transplantation, and "donate" my brain to a cryonics
organization for "research", I'm hoping it won't be so difficult for
my family. They'll have a body to bury, and I'll be more definatively
dead. True, I'm taking a greater risk of losing signifigant chunks
of my personality. My preferance is to be highly conservative and
freeze everything, but I figure that at least part of "me" will
make it through.
Let's all pray that we cure old age soon, and bypass this problem
altogether.
--Will
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