Mother = Dead

For the most part, the world in which we live is brutally indifferent to our wishes. This was brought home to me on June 23, 2004, when my mother was killed in a motor vehicle accident. She was 49 year old, but even if she had been 99, the brutality would have been no less. She had no choice in choosing her death, or lack thereof.

For me now, the gloves are off. The fight for life has turned personal. I will not let my wife, my dad or any of my extended family and friends die without a choice.

I will now accelerate all projects at ImmInst. We will complete our first book in Aug 2004; we will complete our first film by summer 2005; and ImmInst will have its first conference in Atlanta in Nov 2005.

More immediately, I will attend Transvision 2004 in Toronto where our film team will capture footage for the first film.

ImmInst will help researchers and writers on the frontier of life extension technology by extended their message to a larger audience. Together we will win this fight for life.


Theresa B. Klein
1954 - 2004

My deepest sympathies are with you and your family, Bruce. I’m really truly sorry.

Thanks, Nate. Family has been together and I will be close to dad (only child) for the next few months. Susan (my wife) & I helped with the funeral. There were more than 700 at the service. Mom had 8 brothers and sisters and had worked at the Post Office for more than 24 years.

I pursued an emergency suspension with the Cryonics Institute and had convinced many close family members and the hospital to help, but when talking with dad later at mom's bedside (she was kept on a respirator for two days - organ donor), he lamented that she would have wanted to be buried next to her mother (died of cancer 1996).

For others, if you need to do an emergency cryonics and don't have time for a suspension team, ask the funeral home to do a dry ice storage within 48 hrs after death. The Cryonics Institute will help you from there. You'll need around $36,500 to fund the suspension and transport.

Contact Andy Zawacki, Cryonics Institute Facility Manager - cihq@aol.com -
Emergency #1-866-ATT-CRYO -- http://www.cryonics.org/emergency.htm

Andy is very helpful in these types of situations. Sadly I was unable to help my mother as this event happened to quickly. I have a trajectory to sign up my wife, father and extended family soon.

Dearest Bruce,

I am really sad to read about this tragedy. We urgently have to stop involuntary death. I am totally with you.

Immortally yours,

Yosé

Thanks Jose. As there are questions about how the accident happened, I would like to post here once. My dad was driving and mom reached into the back seat to get her cell phone. She was unbuckled and had lifted off the seat for more than 3 seconds. After 3 seconds the air bag turns off (no pressure on the seat). When she turned back around a car pulled out into the road and dad swerved and hit a tree located about 12 feet off the road (Alabama country roads). Dad had seat belt and air bag. Mom hit the windshield head first and broke her neck. She was unconscious from the point of impact and no modern technology could have overcome the brain damage. The hospital kept her on ventilator so they could donate her organs (Kidneys, Liver, Pancreas, Corneas)

BJ,

I'm so sad to hear about your Ma. My thoughts and best wishes are with you and your family. You already know that my objectives and actions with SIAI are also trying to push progress in life saving/extending directions. You have friends out here, on the net... we are not just disconnected participants. We have all been touched by deaths our own families, but now we share your sadness and frustration. Keep going strong.

Michael Roy Ames

To be quite honest, sometimes I think that we, or at least I, need these events to shock us out of our complacency and move us to action. I am so sorry to hear about your loss, Bruce. My psyche recoils from contemplating how delicate our lives are, and how cruel this world can be.

BJ - I am so sorry about your Mom. Please accept my condolences.

Keeping on keeping on,
Dave

I'm so sorry to hear that, Bruce, my master Immortalist! Especially on the 4th of July! My heart goes out to you and your family! Deepest wishes! Let's all live forever in her honor!

Thanks guys. I will move forward with more focus.

My deepest condolences to you and your family, Bruce.


-Jason Abu-Aitah

Dearest Bruce,

I want to become a full member of ImmInst and support your efforts, particularly now. I will arrange with you in Toronto.

Count me as your friend in this tragedy.

Immortally yours,

You have my sincerest sympathy Bruce.

It is at times like these one needs to pick up the pieces and continue with the lessons learned. Often the greatest loss is the strongest incentive. I'll fight by your side until the bitter end, may it never come.

Thor.

Bruce,

I'm very sorry at your horrific loss. Your words "the kid gloves are off" deeply affected me. Please just keep in mind that besides biotech research into fighting aging, we also need further efforts to light a fire under auto manufacturers so that they will make building much safer cars a high priority.

Some transhumanist libertarians mock the efforts of Ralph Nader but I feel his efforts over the years to make cars safer is to be very lauded. Perhaps we should join forces with those who want to not only do conventional things to improve driver safety but apply outside the box technologies to shred current driving fatality statistics.

Anyway, my heart goes out to you. Just a look at the photograph you provided here made me realize what a cool lady she must have been and how much you loved her.

Neither of my parents are signed up though they do have a slight interest in cryonics. They don't drive anymore but in time

We will overcome.

Your friend,

John Grigg

Postscript:

I didn't realize my friend Mark was still signed in here. I'm not an atheist, advanced or otherwise.

John

My sympathy and sadness for your loss doesn't go far enough, BJ. Impotent fury is probably a better description. Just be assured that someone on the other side of the world feels for you and your family and cares in your time of loss.

Dave

Very shocked to hear of the tragic loss of your mother. Such a waste. She lives in you.

HB

Bruce,

You have my deepest sympathies. I lost both my parents and can empathize, but I had time to prepare myself emotionally in both cases. We do have to stop this tragic loss of life. I admire your attitude and your obvious love for your family.

Dave

Dear Bruce,
My heart-felt condolences to you and your family members.
Your words describing this tragic and traumatic event are poignant; I realise
how deeply you were attatched and how painful the bereavement is . Myself
and my family are with you in sharing your grief.

Take care,

Sasy Kumar

Bruce,

I am profoundly dumbfounded. I don't know what to say. Mere words are impotent, but for now they're all I have. I noticed that she was not much older than myself, far too young to have lost her life and so brutally. I don't know how I'll handle it when my parents reach their own ends. It makes me extremely angry that aging and death are even a part of this world.

Unfortunately I have totally failed to convince my parents of the need to be signed up for cryonics. This is largely due to their religious convictions. You state that you are determined to have your father and other family members signed up. I sincerely hope you have better results than I. Do you think you have a good chance? At this point my mother doesn't ever want to hear another word from me about cryonics, life extension or any hint of my lack of faith in her religion.

As I said I am a total failure at convincing my parents. My only hope is that cryonics will slowly, but not too slowly, become accepted as a suspension of trauma procedure stemming from cryo induced hypothermia in ER situations and cryo surgery and the like. Only by seeing it generally accepted through the practices of putting injury and illness on hold rather than, so called, 'cheating death', will my folks ever accept it as not pre-empting their religion.

I hope your family members are far more rational than my own. Best wishes to you. I cannot say I feel your pain, I have no reference point at all. I can only hope for you and your mom that Mike Perry is right about the possibiity of eventual resurrection of all whom have passed before us.

James

Bruce,

I am so sorry about this tragic loss in your life. You are so strong. I look forward to meeting you one day, and I'm glad people like you are fighting for your life, and mine! Good luck in the next couple months.... - Brent Erskine

Bruce,

I feel real sad for you man. I wish you a lot of strength in these hard times, and I offer you my condolences.

Furthermore I would like to state that your commitment to ImmInst is commendable... admirable even.

You may have lost your mother, but with your fanatical efforts you will probably end up influenceing the immortality-movement in a positive way, meaning that immortality will be here quicker. It may not be measurable in any way... but I am sure that you will save hundreds of lives in doing so.

I am not sure if these words are of any comfort to you at this time, but that does not make them any less true. It is only fitting that somebody tells you this at some point. I believed now was the right time.

Take care,

Jay

Dear Bruce,

I understand that this is the worst kind of loss that one can endure in his life. Even the kind of biological immortality that we are looking for could not have prevented it. The only thing that I can say is that please accept my sincerest condolences and take care.

Your friend,
Aliza

Bruce,
I'm really sorry for your loss. I wish I could do more to help you and ImmInst. I'm sure immortality will be reached sooner now because you are directing your feelings into actions.
Sincerely,
Santiago

The sentiment is appreciated. Thanks to everyone for their ongoing support.

Bruce

Hi Bruce,

I can only guess at what you must be feeling from your posts and from our shared orientation as emortalists.

Like all mortals, I (we) rage instinctively against death, especially of a loved one. unlike most, I (we) don't try to dull the pain with bromides that justify the horror and stupidity of it.

I fully empathize with your feeling of renewed commitment to battle the scourge of involuntary death. I feel it every time someone close to me dies -- and to a lesser extent, when a "mere" aquaintance who is at once the loved one of one of my friends, family members, or lovers dies, and I must be there for the survivor.

Every time I go to a funeral, I am subjected to a mixture of appropriate and truly supportive recollection of what the victim's life meant to hir loved ones, and a loathsome apologist sermon about how s/he is better off that way, in Heaven with hir Maker, etc etc, cheapening the reality of the suffering of the bereaved and distancing me from the other mourners that surround me as fury builds in my breast even as everyone around me attempts to drown their sorrow with psychic theology -- the opiate of a deathist culture.

Bruce, even in the midst of your loss, dare to confront the reality what you are facing. Our future depends on consciousness of its awful reality. Only thus will we keep ignited the fire ignited in our bellies that is needed to push us onward to conquer this last enemy -- for "The last enemy that shall be conquered is death" (1 Cor 15:26).

Take care of yourself and your loved ones.

-Michael

Bruce, I'm very sorry for your tragic loss. The situation you described (brain death while on life support) is bad for cryonics. The loss may have been unavoidable, cryonics or otherwise. It's a tragic confluence of events in an indifferent universe-- a universe that we must better bend toward protection of human life.

Ironically, the automobile design feature that prevented airbag deployment in this accident was intended to protect small children. Perhaps your mother lost her life so that some child somewhere might live.

Our thoughts are with you.

---BrianW

Bruce, I am deeply effected by the loss of your mother, as my mom died abruptly long ago when I was 8 years old. I express my sincerest love for what words can express, & the limits of time & space, & the demands of everyday life have on me. I wish you the courage to seek out & understand that which was once unknowable, or said to be impossible, or even down right hokey-pokey by most people who think they know as "facts" without questioning the very fragile human interpretation/assumptions it is based upon.

As strange as this may seem, but one that I have come to realize with little doubt, all conscious beings including us humans, exist in some other form of reality, after what we humans interpret as death. I'm always questioning my beliefs & trying to see the hidden assumptions I take for granted, but this is one I am *almost* certain is true.

From what I think I know thus far (have to leave room for an alien intelligence, god, or even the concept or Feeling that I exist, controlling what they want me to believe : Our bodies, time & space, are just an interpretation of Our identities. The Consciousness in each of us is composed of many identifiers known to us, constantly sending & receiving information from what we observe & to our own internal conscious identifiers, & we term this interpretation "reality" to other like-minded Consciousness that interpret reality in a similar way. It is almost beyond any doubt to me, once the body's conscious identifiers (which are really beliefs about beliefs of existence) loses its connection into believing it existed in a body form, the Consciousness in that person, will either abandon that intrepretation of reality completely, or be reborn into another time & space interpretation. This *may* depend on the knowledge of the consciousness- I'm not certain on that, yet.

It is also my belief, that once we become more Conscious of the information of Ourself, we will be able to recall our past memories & past lives, but I cannot say for certain this is true. Do I believe in reincarnation? Almost without any doubt. But I hope we do achieve immortality in this version of our lives, so we can be amazed at the sheer love, joy, & greater meaning it will give us, & vividly remember the experiences which led us there.

Love for eternity, & imagination without limits (for that is, indeed, the truest aspiration, once we possess the knowledge to control our version of reality


Lots of love to everyone here, especially for Bruce & his family,
Chris ~<:3

Hang in there, Bruce. You were a big help to me a few months ago, so anything you want or need, you got it.

I know someday I will face the same thing, since my mother will *never* sign up. Ever. No matter what. So I will have to remember her, like a Bradbury character carrying a book around in his head.

It's a war of attrition, and we can't even see the enemy. In historical war, that is a sure recipe for crashing morale and utter defeat. So, we work on the morale, and places like what you have established here help with that. But we need just a little more to keep going. When the Armistice is signed, we will gather here and other places to celebrate and remember. Remember, since if we don't, who will? That's what will keep us going.

So I'll pour myself a cold one, think of you, your mother, and all the others I remember, and drink my usual toast, "Absent Friends".

steve vs

With Sympathy Bruce,

Whether it comes suddenly or slowly, early or late, violently or serenely, the death of a person we love changes our world and ourselves.

When you lose a loved one, suddenly you become part of a club you never wanted membership in but one that marks you for life. Anyone who has lost someone to death feels robbed and cheated, but sometimes the price of life is loss. From the moment of birth when we leave the womb forever, we face loss in many ways. We may move and never see our childhood home again, friendships fade, we may lose money, possessions, hope, we change jobs, we graduate, we marry and divorce. Every change, desired or not, large or small, involves loss. Losses shape our lives. And of these, the most universal, inevitable, and serious loss is the death of someone we love. Yet death is the loss for which most of us are least prepared.

Once, when most people lived in small communities and closely knit family groups, death was woven into the fabric of our lives. Babies died in infancy; children were swept away by disease, mothers died in child-birth, and dead bodies were displayed in the parlor. For most of human existence, young people died with a frequency hard for us to imagine. As late as the turn of the century, more than half the people who died in the United States were under fifteen years old. Only 17 percent were over the age of sixty-five. By the late 1960s, more than two thirds of recorded deaths were of people over the age of sixty-five. As a result, many people today are well into middle age before they experience the death of a loved one. Our difficulty in dealing with death is compounded by the fact that we live in a death-denying society. To deny its existence, we use a symphony of euphemisms. Instead of admitting that people we love have actually died, we say they are “no longer with us,” that they have “de-parted,” “expired,” “passed away,” “gone.” We say we have “lost” them as if they might be found. And rather than using the word dead, we say they are “late”-of all euphemisms, surely the one of greatest denial, since it seems to imply that any moment now the late person might show up-tardy again.

Each year millions of people suffer the death of a close family member. The list of high visibility disasters, human suffering and sudden loss is long and will continue to grow. Many include families and individuals we don’t see. They are suffering behind closed doors in our neighborhoods, in our own homes, in hospital waiting rooms. They are pacing ICU hallways, watching as life support is discontinued, sitting numb in hard chairs. They are torn apart by an unexpected phone call. They are grappling with sudden death, a sudden ending, a sudden tragedy. None of them were ready to say “goodbye”.

In a split-second with the news of a loved one’s sudden death, the world changes forever. We are slam-dunked into an abyss, no time for finished business or goodbyes.

Physically, we may be made up of cells and genes and skin and bones, but emotionally, we are composed of thoughts and feelings and memories and pieces of the people we have touched, and who have touched us. After the news of sudden death, we awake less whole with a gaping hole left by the death of the person we knew. Grief brings that moment where you awake and look into the mirror, and no longer recognize the eyes staring back at you. Though the sun still rises and sets as it always has, everything looks just a bit different, a bit distorted. The shadows cast by grief stretch far and wide.

May you see light where there is only darkness, hope where there seems nothing but despair, may your anger be replaced with insight, may you feel some victory in this defeat and a sense of the sacred web into which we are all woven. Most of all may you stay in tune with your capacity to love and seek life even as you are engulfed by death.

Your Eternal Friend...