Freezing People is (Not) Easy (9 page)

Over the next few days, we built a wooden container for Marie from a large box originally used for shipping coffins. We insulated the inside and lid of the box with four inches of liquid polyurethane that solidified into a Styrofoam-like material. A second box was built to fit inside the larger, insulated one. Inside this second wooden box we placed Marie Sweet's body, along with several hundred pounds of dry ice. This configuration allowed Marie's body to be maintained at -109°F for a week before needing more dry ice.

I had the unenviable task of revealing to Russ that his wife was now frozen. A few days and countless phone calls later, I finally reached him. Although it was midmorning, he sounded groggy, as though he had just woken up.

I started tentatively. “Russ, have you heard the news?”

“Something about the conference? I got in late last night from that job up in Salinas. I think I have to slow it down—I'm too old to be working eighteen-hour days anymore. How's it going?”

My stomach sank. He didn't know, and I'd have to be the one to tell him.

“I'm dreadfully sorry to tell you this, but Marie died. The mortuary said it happened peacefully in her sleep.” I continued to explain the details provided by the mortuary and all our efforts to locate him.

“She's gone? She died alone?” He went on like that—asking the same questions numerous times, alternating between the grief of a heartbroken husband and the practicality of dealing with the aftermath.

When the torrent of questions subsided, I broached the issue of the cryonics suspension.

“She's frozen? Oh, thank God. So she's not really gone.” He exhaled deeply. “Thank you. Thank you. That meant so much to Marie. I'm so grateful to you.”

Russ, undeterred by the amount of time between the death and freezing of Marie's body, asked that I maintain her in cryonic suspension. Imperfect or not, barely feasible or not, Russ wanted this for Marie because she wanted it so much for herself. Near the end of the conversation, I finally broached the costs. “How much has Marie set aside for her suspension?”

A few moments of discouraging silence followed before he responded, “I'll need a few days to get back to you.”

After hanging up, I began pricing capsules. Marie's freezing was, quite likely, never a viable suspension. She had been dead for several days, but we cryonicists are notorious optimists, and I had an unyielding faith that future scientific discoveries would render that two-day delay irrelevant. Marie's fate was now completely dependent on that faith. We had done our best. She had done so much for so many, and now she deserved for others to do for her.

With the freezing of Marie Sweet, the CSC now had its first frozen hero. Keeping Marie's body in perpetual suspension required money. The meager CSC budget depended on member dues, which weren't enough to cover day-to-day expenses. Knowing Marie, I was confident she had set aside at least the minimal amount necessary for her suspension. We needed to find a capsule, a permanent storage facility, and a liquid nitrogen provider. We were looking at at least ten thousand dollars to start, maybe more.

Russ showed up at my house a few days later. He pulled a wad of cash out of his pocket and laid it on the table.

“There's three hundred dollars, Bob,” he said. “That's all the money we have.”

Shocked, I stared at the meager pile of money. I had assumed Marie and Russ were financially secure. They lived in a gorgeous home overlooking the ocean, and he sold unique iron gates to wealthy people. Looking at Russ's forlorn expression, I knew he was telling me the truth.

I picked up the cash and rolled the bills around in my hand. “Is that all?” I asked. Three hundred dollars would pay for only a month of dry ice.

“That's it,” he said. “We've mostly been living on our Social Security. I know it's not enough to keep her in suspension. Please do whatever you can.”

How could I say no?
I dropped the money back on the table, and it landed next to a family photo of Elaine and me. I remembered that Russ cherished Marie the way I loved my wife. I would fight for Marie. “I'll keep her in temporary storage as long as possible. Perhaps with some publicity generated by the suspension, and a little arm-twisting within the cryonics community, enough money could be raised.”

Russ Van Norden, Russ Stanley, and I set out to find donations for Marie Sweet's suspension. I wrote Professor Ettinger, asking if he could raise money from the membership of the Cryonics Society of Michigan. He replied with a personal check for one hundred dollars to help Marie. While hope, passion, and faith were plentiful within the cryonics community, cash always seemed to be a scarce commodity. His donation was generous and touching. He wrote, “I'll see what can be done locally, but I'm doubtful we can raise any substantial sum.”

In Russ's impassioned plea to the cryonics community and his wife's numerous organizations, he gave voice to the motivations and dreams of all our members:

 

Tears dim my eyes and anguish wrenches at my heart as I recall with crystal clarity my wife's many crusades for the peaceful communication of mankind. I am humbled that I have done so little in comparison. As many of you now know, she lies carefully but critically suspended, no different in essence than when you knew her yesteryear. If she has touched your cause and organization, then you may have felt her contribution and feel moved to give your kind aid.

Perhaps it could be said of her that she had everything except money, for the great and near great counted her as a friend. From East to West and even abroad, she helped to weave the fabric of some good Cause for the benefit and enlightenment of mankind.

I touched her hair and kissed her now cold lips in a farewell for what may well be only a few short years. Swiftly developing science may remove her from her minus-zero suspended animation and return her here among us—her enthusiasm undimmed.

If you would dare believe this is possible, the need is now for funds for cryogenic care until the final sealing of her enclosing capsule for the long wait of months or years ahead. Hers was an ideal passing, and traditional fears only hover at the outer edge of my consciousness. For I believe in steadfast earnestness that she will come back to us.

Russ Le Croix Van Norden

 

His letter received a torrent of sympathy mail and emotional support, but little money. We contemplated our other options, but none of our efforts proved successful.

Joseph Klockgether agreed to keep Marie Sweet in his unused garage on his mortuary grounds until we could obtain a capsule and a permanent storage facility. Those twin tasks were far more arduous than I had envisioned. First there was the dry ice, which had to be replenished every week and cost ninety dollars. Often there weren't enough funds in the CSC bank account to cover the weekly replenishment, and I had to withdraw the money from my personal account. Sometimes I had to choose between paying my mortgage and paying for dry ice. And with each dollar spent on dry ice, we were a dollar further away from a permanent solution.

Thus began my weekly ritual of transporting the dry ice across Los Angeles to Joseph's mortuary, which I would perform for the next two years. I usually left around ten or eleven o'clock in the morning to avoid the worst of the traffic during my fifty-mile trek on the Ventura Freeway between my home in Woodland Hills and the Rennaker Mortuary in Buena Park. The ninety-minute trip could extend to three hours, the dry ice slowly subliming in my backseat. The cold permeated the seats and froze the upholstery on my Porsche Speedster; eventually the leather seats looked like black prunes.

One Saturday I was sitting in traffic, watching the dry ice slowly disappear in my rearview mirror. I wanted action, and yet all I seemed to be doing was sitting, waiting, and accomplishing nothing more than my friends lying in stasis. In an effort to move, to do
something,
I pulled my car over to the freeway shoulder and buried my face in my hands. “Am I crazy?” I said aloud. “What the hell am I doing? This is madness.” My breathing grew shallow and fast as I fought the temptation to take the dry ice from the backseat and shuck it off the overpass. It would be an ending.

I balled my hands into fists so tight that my nails cut into the fleshy part of my palms and tried to calm myself. I repeated memorable lines from Professor Ettinger's book, from his appearances, and from our conversations. I made a mental checklist of all the supporting documentation about cryonics and convinced myself again of its logic. I looked out the window and marveled at a weed growing from the narrowest imaginable crack in the dry asphalt. “Yes, this is logical,” I resolved. “But it's also crazy. Life is crazy. And life always finds a way.” I shrugged, resigned once again to my fate of these weekly sojourns of dry-ice replenishment and feeling confident that these were messy but necessary steps toward our goal of future reanimation.

At the mortuary I pulled up to the garage and unloaded the dry ice. Marie's container was kept below a wide shelf on rollers so it could be pulled out. I removed the lid and placed the dry ice around her sides, which gave me the opportunity to visually inspect her condition every week. I wanted to make sure she was still solidly frozen and she didn't have skin burns from the dry ice. Her face and features looked identical to when we had our last conversation. There was no deterioration or alteration; not even her blue pantsuit seemed changed. Once satisfied, I covered her with the remaining dry ice, starting with her face and then working down to her feet. Finally I replaced the lid and rolled her container back into place. The procedure usually took about forty-five minutes.

I dreaded trying to find Joseph at the mortuary. I wandered around the facility calling for him, but I inevitably located him in the embalming room. Many times I'd gone there and found Joseph standing over a body on the operating table. In those moments, the macabre reality of death came upon me. Sometimes the corpse was cut open, the intestines lying on the table.

I hoped that with all my efforts, embalming would be reduced. That practice seemed horrendously wasteful—it only temporarily preserved the appearance of life, while we wanted to preserve life itself.

When remembering the history of the cryonics movement in which I was privileged to participate, I could not forget a frail, tiny lady named Helen Kline—the woman who hosted our first California cryonics meetings. While in the final stages of lung cancer, Helen read
The Prospect of Immortality.
She was a motivating force from the beginning. Although only in her mid- to late fifties, she was quite frail. During the meetings in her home, she often excused herself with her frequent coughing fits.

One time she asked me to accompany her to the grocery store. When we arrived at the market, she kept her arm hooked in mine and paraded around the store instead of actually shopping. I noticed all her friends staring and whispering about me. I realized I wasn't providing assistance but rather arm candy. Playing the role she wanted, I strutted with her, hoping to provide the most memorable impression on behalf of this indomitable lady.

On May 14, 1968, I received a call from her sister at Los Angeles General Hospital. “I'm Maryann, Helen's sister. She asked me to phone you several days ago, and I'm sorry it took me so long. She's in a coma now, and her doctors say her condition is deteriorating fast.”

“Thanks so much for calling,” I replied. As I had learned too well with Marie Sweet, advance knowledge and preparation were vital. “Are you aware that Helen is a major figure in cryonics? She has signed all the necessary documents to have her body frozen at death.”

“I am aware of the legal papers.”

Her curt tone worried me, so I rushed to Helen's bedside.

When I arrived at the hospital, I could see Helen was near the end. Her skin was a shocking blue-gray, and she was flanked by countless machines. Nurses hurried in and out of the room to check her monitors. Maryann was holding Helen's hand; she was about sixty, with a heap of gray hair stacked high on her head.

Since I wasn't sure if Helen could hear us, I asked Maryann to follow me into the hallway. “Has your sister made any financial arrangements for cryonics suspension?”

She held up her hand. “There's no need to discuss this. I have no money, and neither does Helen. While you were on your way here, she regained consciousness and told me she changed her mind and does not want her body frozen. She wants to be cremated.”

Her statement ignited a slow burn in my gut. “Really?” I replied. “Are you telling me that very coincidentally, as I was rushing down here to make arrangements to place her in suspended animation, she miraculously came out of a coma just long enough to tell you that she had changed her mind and wanted to be cremated, then conveniently went back into her coma?”

She sheepishly answered, “Well, yes.”

I did not want to further upset the woman, but I couldn't allow her to interfere with Helen's wishes. Firmly yet gently I told her, “I think it would be wise for you to back off, unless you want a lawsuit you couldn't possibly win.”