porcelain. ivory. steel.

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.