Arrangements for Naomi. Jordan Peterson on depopulation.

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Pathologist Ryan Cole, who practices in Idaho, got back to me this week with regard to a pathology investigation for Naomi.

I learned from the Internet that the medical examiner, in Massachusetts apparently a medical doctor, opens up the entire corpse and takes tissue samples. I was unable to find a list of which organs are sampled, but the autopsy description indicates that every internal organ in the body would be accessible. Also the brain – they cut open the skull to get access.

They do the autopsy in such a way that they can put things back together so the funeral home can make the body presentable in case there is a wake, though in Naomi's case they cremated her immediately.

Alex Cullen of Cole's office said that the tissue samples are kept for at least a year. We can later have the tissue samples forwarded to Idaho where they could do an examination, if we want. He said that they are still working on a fee schedule for that kind of work – he will let me know.

The take-home point is that there was no need for a fast decision on my part. That is useful news for anybody else going through the same thing. I can wait for the medical examiner's report, which should reach me in June, and ask for a private pathologist examination if we want to know more.

The funeral home posted this obituary for Naomi. Though I had told them by telephone that I would like to contribute, they never asked.  The obit indicates that she died in her sleep.  There will be a memorial service at St. Patrick's Episcopal Church in Washington DC on March 25. My ex-wife Mary Ann could have had the courtesy to ask if that would be convenient, or at a minimum to let me know that she had scheduled it. She did neither. 

Mary Ann fervently wishes to avoid ever seeing me again, confronting the fact that she stymied me at every turn attempting to put some discipline into the children's lives, and that they did not turn out well. Though I have written her that parenting is only a part of what forms a kid – schools, peers, the social environment and perhaps vaccines and environmental factors all play a role – she focuses on the negative. We disagreed, she carried the day, and this is the result.

There is an irony in this. I had attended St. Patrick's before we met and continued to attend long after she and the children had lost interest. My strongest memory is of her next to me, uncomfortably sitting through an Easter service – she was an Easter and Christmas Christian  –  and telling me to shut up.  My singing embarrassed her.  Late in the game I studied voice under their music director and joined the choir.

She knew St. Patricks could handle Naomi – I had arranged for her father's memorial service there in 2005. Without me she would've had no connection whatsoever with a church.

Mark in Berlin sent this link to Jordan Peterson talking about depopulation.  He and his guest Steven Shaw give a number of practical reasons for the birth dearth.  Women believe the overpopulation story.  They believe that all people are the same, and people elsewhere are fertile enough that they need not bother.  Women spend their 20s getting educated.  They don't realize how limited their window of fertility actually is.  There are financial pressures. 

Peterson likes to think that women want children, if only circumstances permitted.  I think it is worse than that.  Women have been conditioned not to think about children.  In many cases, not to like them.  Not to trust men in any capacity, least of all as fathers and providers. To enjoy their freedom.   

Wrapping back to the memorial service, I doubt that Naomi's friends in attendance will have kids.  I know that none of Mary Ann’s family have school-age kids.  The presence of a guy such as me who defies the anti-fertility meme would not be welcome.  They will get their wish.  I won't be there.

That's the news from Lake WeBeGone, where the strong man is recovering his strength bit by bit.  I'll put in a few minutes on the exercise bike this afternoon before picking up Zoriana from kindergarten.  It does the family good to be without me from time to time.  Eddie and Zoriana have risen to the occasion, taking up some of the slack. 

Graham