Just thinking about cryonics gives me chills

by Beth Teitell
Tuesday, July 9, 2002

``Not to always bring everything back to me,'' a colleague said before bringing it back to her, but she had just read about John Henry Williams' plan to freeze dear old dad, and she realized that there was nothing about her that would be worth saving for future generations.

There would be no unseemly family squabble over her remains, no restraining orders, no lawyers, no charges of immorality, no ice bath for her corpse. ``No one even wants to eat the leftovers I freeze,'' she said.

Yes, it is depressing that Ted Williams' legacy will have this creepy footnote, she agreed, and that his son may be trying to make a buck off a dead man, but, she added, ``in some ways it's the ultimate compliment.''

I was horrified, but I saw her point. And the more popular cryonics gets - people already have started putting pets on ice - the more insulting it's going to be for those of us whose loved ones don't try to give us a second chance at life.

Just thinking about my unmourned death made me tear up, so I went to the ladies room to have a little pity party. ``If you loved me,'' I practiced crying into the mirror, Joan Crawford style, ``you'd freeze my head.''

``When I go,'' my colleague added when I returned, ``my kids will probably be like, `Sorry, mom, you were great, but it's time to choose a headstone.' ''

But not everyone came away from reading the Ted Williams story feeling bad about herself. ``Of all the fights my brother and I have had,'' a friend with sibling issues told me, ``and no doubt will have, I can't imagine us fighting over something like this. It's sick, but I actually feel happier about our relationship today.''

Even though we were on the phone, and she was alone in her house, she lowered her voice. ``Doesn't it seem like a guy thing?'' she said. ``The daughter wants to respect her father's wishes and have him cremated, and sprinkle the ashes over the water near Key West, and the son thinks he knows better and wants to store his body at something like minus 300 degrees until it can one day be brought back to life.''

At this point the whole cryonics thing is still science fiction, but we thought about what it would be like if Ted Williams were frozen and came back to life one day. Who would he be angrier at, we wondered, his son or his daughter? Or maybe he'd be furious with them both.

Meanwhile, my colleague who'd been upset a few minutes earlier about not being worthy of a second shot at life had had some time to consider what a second life would really be like, and realized maybe she'd be better off not pushing for a deep freeze. True, she said, they would have perfected lipo and Botox by then (whenever ``then'' was), but on the downside, unless she hit a retro trend just right, her clothes would be hopelessly out of date and she'd need a whole new wardrobe. ``That can be very expensive,'' she said.

She's right - even jeans these days can cost $100 or more. Has John Henry Williams thought about that?