Don’t
imagine for a minute I plan to kick the bucket tomorrow. The reason I’m
re-sharing this is because I was reminded of it recently while conversing with
someone. I remember the first time I read it, I was really struck by the words.
A few years
back I lost 3 of the most important people to me all in one year, and I
struggled with coping and understanding losing them all so close to one
another. I wish I had this to read back then, because of how much the words
comforted me.
I’m going
off the assumption this guy knows what he’s talking about, because I am not a
physicist. The truth is, even if every word after what I write here is complete
poppycock I don’t really care. I
stumbled across it when I needed to, and rediscovered it again when I needed a
bit of reminding. I thought what the hell, I’ll share with the class. Enjoy.
“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 broken-hearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons
that ever bounced off your face, all the particles who’s 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 your energy is given
off as heat. There may be a few fanning themselves with their programs as he
says it. And he will tell him 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 they can measure, that
scientists have measure 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
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