I Am a Strange Loop

What made for the most profound bond between us, though, was without doubt the births of our two children. As a mere married couple without children, we were still not totally fused — in fact, like most couples, we were at times totally confused. But when new people, vulnerable tiny people, came into our lives, some kind of vectors inside us aligned totally. There are many couples who do not agree on how to rear their children, but Carol and I discovered happily that we saw eye-to-eye on virtually everything regarding ours. And if one of us was uncertain, talking with the other would always bring clarity into the picture.

That shared goal of bringing up our children safely, happily, and wisely in this huge, crazy, and often scary world became the dominant motif of our marriage, and it forged us both in the same mold. Although we were distinct individuals, that distinctness seemed to fade away, to vanish almost entirely, when it came to parenthood. First in that arena of life, and then slowly in other arenas, we were one individual with two bodies, one sole “pairson”, one “indivisible dividual”, one single “dual”. We two were Twe. We had exactly the same feelings and reactions, we had exactly the same dreads and dreams, exactly the same hopes and fears. Those hopes and dreams were not mine or Carol’s separately, copied twice — they were one set of hopes and dreams, they were our hopes and dreams.

I don’t mean to sound mystical, as if to suggest that our common hopes floated in some ethereal neverland independent of our brains. That’s not my view at all. Of course our hopes were physically instantiated two times, once in each of our separate brains — but when seen at a sufficiently abstract level, these hopes were one and the same pattern, merely realized in two distinct physical media.

No one has trouble with the idea that “the same gene” can exist in two different cells, in two different organisms. But what is a gene? A gene is not an actual physical object, because if it were, it could only be located in one cell, in one organism. No, a gene is a pattern — a particular sequence of nucleotides (usually encoded on paper by a sequence of letters from the four-letter alphabet “ACGT”). And so a gene is an abstraction, and thus “the very same gene” can exist in different cells, different organisms, even organisms living millions of years apart.

No one has trouble with the idea that “the same novel” can exist in two different languages, in two different cultures. But what is a novel? A novel is not a specific sequence of words, because if it were, it could only be written in one language, in one culture. No, a novel is a pattern — a particular collection of characters, events, moods, tones, jokes, allusions, and much more. And so a novel is an abstraction, and thus “the very same novel” can exist in different languages, different cultures, even cultures thriving hundreds of years apart.

And so no one should have trouble with the idea that “the same hopes and dreams” can inhabit two different people’s brains, especially when those two people live together for years and have, as a couple, engendered new entities on which these hopes and dreams are all centered. Perhaps this seems overly romantic, but it is how I felt at the time, and it is how I still feel. The sharing of so much, particularly concerning our two children, aligned our souls in some intangible yet visceral manner, and in some dimensions of life turned us into a single unit that acted as a whole, much as a school of fish acts as a single-minded higher-level entity.

CHAPTER 16

Grappling with the Deepest Mystery

A Random Event Changes Everything

IN THE month of December, 1993, when we were just a quarter of the way into my sabbatical year in Trento, Italy, my wife Carol died very suddenly, essentially without warning, of a brain tumor. She was not yet 43, and our children, Danny and Monica, were but five and two. I was shattered in a way I could never have possibly imagined before our marriage. There had been a bright shining soul behind those eyes, and that soul had been suddenly eclipsed. The light had gone out.