not a bit of you is gone; you’re just less orderly.

[austin_tycho]

“You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got.

And at one point you’d hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you. And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever.

And the physicist will remind the congregation of how much of all our energy is given off as heat. There may be a few fanning themselves with their programs as he says it. And he will tell them that the warmth that flowed through you in life is still here, still part of all that we are, even as we who mourn continue the heat of our own lives.

And you’ll want the physicist to explain to those who loved you that they need not have faith; indeed, they should not have faith. Let them know that they can measure, that scientists have measured precisely the conservation of energy and found it accurate, verifiable and consistent across space and time. You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they’ll be comforted to know your energy’s still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you’re just less orderly.

Amen."

- Aaron Freeman

Comments

[starcrossedlady.livejournal.com]

A dear friend (and an ex-girlfriend's of Howard's: There's a couple of funny ha ha stories related to this, but anyway) had a boy, who had fought cancer from when he was a baby (and he was a premmie so he was fighting from the time he was born) till when his poor little body couldn't take it anymore at seven. They had had a service for him back on the east coast where they lived and where her husband's family lived, then they brought him back here, to be buried with other members of her family (and they are looking to move back).

This was pretty much the gist of what the gentleman who led the service said. That John was no longer with us in body, but he'll always remain with us because he changed us all for the better with his sunny spirit and tenacious attitude and how he was full of love and laughter, even when it was getting down to the wire.

So... yeah. Though they may not be with us as an entity, they always will be there.