I never thought I'd be the guy planning to spend eternity as a human popsicle. Yet here I am, not only signed up to have my corpse deep-frozen when I kick the bucket, but I've somehow convinced my entire family to join this bizarre afterlife waiting room too.

God. Sometimes I catch myself explaining this to new acquaintances at dinner parties and watch their expressions shift from curiosity to that polite frozen smile that screams "I'm dining with a lunatic."

Death: Just a Temporary Inconvenience?

That's what cryonics promises, anyway. For those who haven't tumbled down this particular rabbit hole, cryonics involves preserving dead bodies at ridiculously low temperatures in liquid nitrogen, betting that future medical wizards will figure out how to defrost and revive us. All for the bargain price of $28,000.

I'm Dennis Kowalski. Former paramedic, current director of the Cryonics Institute, and apparently teh guy who convinced his entire family to join what my brother-in-law calls "the ultimate cold storage club."

Back in 1995, I signed myself up. It took years to get my wife Maria on board. The conversation started with her laughing in my face and ended with her reluctantly agreeing that maybe—just maybe—I wasn't completely insane.

What the hell am I thinking?!

Our Michigan facility currently houses about 270 people in what basically look like giant thermos bottles filled with liquid nitrogen. We've got an equal number of pets too. Some folks have even had their frozen pets cloned—real Fidos running around while the originals wait in suspended animation.

Listen. I know how this sounds. Trust me, I've heard all the jokes. "Gonna wake up as a brain in a robot?" "Planning a career as a future popsicle?" My personal favorite came from my oldest son Jacob: "Dad, what if you wake up and everyone's speaking Chinese?"

Fair question, kid.

The Family That Freezes Together...

My three boys—Jacob, Danny, and James—all agreed to sign up after I explained my reasoning. Two of them followed me into emergency medicine, so they understand the science better than most. They've seen enough death to know why their old man might be interested in a loophole, however unlikely.

We've each contributed our $28,000, which theoretically gets transferred to our future bank accounts if we're ever revived. Imagine waking up in 2187 with nothing but your family and a bank balance that probably won't even cover a space coffee.

I've lost people I loved. My parents. Close friends. The thought of possibly—even if it's a million-to-one shot—seeing them again drives me more than anything.

"We're kind of an ambulance ride to a future hospital that may or may not exist," I tell people. Not exactly the most reassuring sales pitch, but at least it's honest.

Scientists Think We're Nuts (Most of Them, Anyway)

Plenty of big-brain neuroscientists dismiss what we're doing as false hope. And yeah, they might be right. But there's actual science behind the possibility.

We can already freeze embryos and bring them back successfully. Various cells and tissues can be preserved this way. We just haven't figured out how to do it with an entire human and then reverse the process.

"We just haven't perfected the whole person," I explain to skeptics. Though I sometimes wonder if I'm really convincing them or just reassuring myself.

Not everyone's a good candidate. A body that's been dead too long won't work. And nobody wants to wake up as a 99-year-old just to immediately die again. That would be... awkward.

Your Family Might Fight Your Frozen Future

The biggest obstacle to getting frozen? Your own relatives.

I've seen it play out dozens of times. Someone dies, and suddenly the family that promised to respect their cryonic wishes starts eyeing that $28K and thinking about vacation homes instead. Suddenly grandpa's "ridiculous freezer scheme" seems like money better spent on the living.

That's why I tell everyone to get their families on board first. Use life insurance to fund it rather than your estate. Keep the peace before you're put on ice.

In my case, I'm lucky. My whole family's signed up. We're all in this together—either heading toward the most incredible second chance in history or the world's most expensive collective delusion.

It might be a shot in the dark... but it's the only shot we've got.

Who Would You Want in Your Future?

I think about this a lot. Waking up centuries from now would be terrifying enough without doing it alone. You'd want familiar faces—people who remember the same world you do, who get your outdated references and can laugh with you about how weird everything's become.

That's why I pushed for my family to join me. I don't want to wake up in some sterile future hospital room surrounded by strangers speaking a language I don't understand. I want Maria rolling her eyes at me when I inevitably say something stupid about the flying cars. I want my boys there to explore whatever new world exists.

Maybe we'll all stay frozen forever. Maybe this whole thing is just an expensive way to avoid confronting mortality.

But what if it works?

Wouldn't you give everything you own for one more day with someone you've lost?