Not the Twilight Zone
Now this is a very sad story that would seem to be science fiction, but isn't. Sonny Graham received the heart of a suicide victim named Terry Cottle. Afterwards, he seems to have assimilated something of the dead man's essence into his being. From the story:The operation was a success and soon after, Mr Graham, 69, contacted the organ donor agency, saying he wanted to thank Mr Cottle's family. He began writing to Mr Cottle's widow, Cheryl, 39, and they soon fell in love and were married in 2004, moving to the US state of Georgia.
After the wedding, Mrs Graham said: "It helped me so much. Meeting Sonny made it easier for me, knowing something so good came from something so bad." In a newspaper article published in 2006, Mr Graham said he felt an instant and unusual attachment when he met his donor's widow. "I felt like I had known her for years," Mr Graham said. "I couldn't keep my eyes off her. I just stared."
But now, 12 years after the operation, Mrs Graham's life has been rocked by another tragedy. Mr Graham killed himself with a shotgun, in circumstances similar to those which claimed Mr Cottle's life. His friends said he had shown no signs of being depressed and were at a loss to explain his sudden death.According to scientists, there are more than 70 documented cases of transplant patients taking on some of the personality traits of the organ donors.
Some people--and not just those on late night flying saucer talk radio--say that our whole bodies reflect and constitute who we are, not just the brain. This, it seems to me, gives a bit of credence to that theory.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 9:20 PM
5 Comments
5 Comments:
I can think of about three or four other explanations...but it's still bloody creepy.
If you let his sudden attraction to the widow pass as a coincidence, you might begin to think the problem was with the widow. That's _certainly_ how it would go in an Agatha Christie novel. She's always having people get off on red herrings about supernatural or spooky explanations and then having it just turn out that somebody is manipulating matters.
That was my thought, too, but I'm visiting my parents and they're addicted to crime dramas. Warps one's thinking.
1) the heart affected the guy's personality
2) the widow has killed two husbands without any evidence to show it
3) someone in the family or related to the family has driven two people to suicide in the same manner
4) the guy expected to take on the personality, ie, 'take it to heart'
5) the guy subconsciously believed that at "heart" he was now partly someone else, and acted accordingly.
2 and 3 have probably already been looked into by the cops, so unlikely. No evidence of 4, and that is the kind of thing that would've come up as a warning sign.
1 and 5 are basically warring world views; barring control cases where they don't know the source of the organs and/or didn't get transplants, you can't show it's "all in their head."
...
This is why I don't get up early in the morning, I tend to over think things.
A great book on this subject, from a Neurologists' perspective, is "Looking for Spinoza".
I told my teenage daughter this story, making it pretty clear that I think the idea that he's physically taking on the other guy's personality is completely false, and the first thing she said was, "Did either of these two men have any money?" :-)
You can tell she reads the Agatha Christie novels, too.
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