Chimeras: Our Closest Lost Loved Ones May Be Assimilated Into Our DNAWhat immunology can teach us about the grieving process
Early in his remarkable essay “Chimera,” Gerald N. Callahan, a professor of immunology at Colorado State University, grapples with the loss of his wife and the odd occurrence of, what […]
Early in his remarkable essay “Chimera,” Gerald N. Callahan, a professor of immunology at Colorado State University, grapples with the loss of his wife and the odd occurrence of, what seems to him, her reappearance before his very eyes.
Professor Callahan, who has a joint appointment in the university’s Department of English, says he spied his first wife, who died a decade prior, one gray November day as he buttered a croissant at a pastry shop. He follows this opening scene in his essay with the ardent exclamation, “I’m not crazy,” and goes on to explain the sighting scientifically as well as symbolically.
The chimera Callahan alludes to in the essay title is a monstrous fire-breathing hybrid creature from Greek mythology that is composed of the parts of more than one animal. Callahan explains that, metaphorically, we’re all chimeras. Every day we come in contact with people who influence our lives, changing the way we think and act. We read the same books, add their songs to our playlists, work side-by-side, and invite them to our homes. In these ways and more, they become part of ourselves: A simple enough analogy.
Not so simple is how we are literal chimeras as well. In the world of science, the chimera has become a standard metaphor to represent how our bodies can harbor two sets of DNA. We breathe in particles that our friends and family have breathed out. We accumulate bits of others in microscopic amounts — from everyday interactions (like those books we share, a hug, a kiss) to greater intimacies.
A Collection of Memories
To help us understand how our bodies assimilate these microscopic bits and pieces of our world, Callahan compares the memory banks of our immune system to Mason jars, the same Mason jars in which his grandmother and my mother stored all the reusable tidbits of our lives: buttons, buckles, rubber bands and pennies.
I can follow his analogy for how the immune system stores “intricate things that the rest of the body has forgotten.” I understand that “the memories stored inside our immune systems can come back” — like vaccination serums, geared up to fight a recalled toxin. But how does an immune system conjure up a dead spouse?
Credit: buttonsgaloreandmore.net
Callahan goes on to explain that, through their relationship, his wife had become embedded “under his skin” in the same way that an injected immunization does — via “enveloped viruses” like those that cause colds and flu. He goes on to inform us that these viral host cells contain genetic material along with lipids and proteins. He adds:
“Some of that DNA or DNA made from RNA clearly gets incorporated into our chromosomes and begins to work inside of us. This means that each time we are infected with one of these viruses, we also acquire a little of the person who infected us, a little piece of someone else. Infection as communication. Infection as chimeraization. Infection as memorization.”
When we apply the science to the phenomenon of Callahan “seeing” his long-dead wife, this is what actually happened: He noticed a woman in a familiar setting and, even though she didn’t look like his wife, the part of his mind that — like a Mason jar — stored the particles of his life with her, projected his wife’s image onto this stranger. Even though his wife was gone, it was almost like she was there.
Alas, Callahan was not crazy.
Note: Gerald Callahan’s essay “Chimera,” from his book “Faith, Madness, and Spontaneous Human Combustion: What Immunology Can Teach Us About Self-Perception”, also appears in “In Fact: The Best of Creative Nonfiction,” edited by Lee Gutkind.
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