Happy Valentine's Day?

Tactful Valentine's Day suggestion, oui?

How romantic. <3

I want a physicist to speak at my funeral!

My friend, Heather, posted this commentary on her Facebook a long time back and I saved it - it's been a bookmark on my web browser for a year plus.

The Circle of Life, give or take a few steps.

I am entirely science-minded and like having solid backing to the wonders of the world. Science dictates that, in the circle of life, we are created, we live, we die, and we are broken down into the tiniest of biological and mineral components to be re-used for the next guy. Science has additionally agreed upon the concept that energy cannot be created or destroyed, and that it may only change forms. I don't know what I believe about where my mind and spirit and soul and whatever other non-tactile part of me will go when I die, but I like what this guy has to say about it. I find it comforting to think about, too, when I stress about someone close to me and their imminent end. Here is a physicist's take (via a black Jewish comedian's commentary on National Public Radio) on the passing of your best friend, your father, your wife, your child:

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 

Energy cannot be created nor destroyed, not even yours. It just changes from one form to another.

(You can find the audio at the linked website at the very beginning of this post, but for the record, the actual transcript of the eulogy speech is the part that got me. I honestly didn't even listen to the audio until today, and I didn't even get halfway through it because it sounds so tacky and kind of like he's building up to sell you on a pyramid scheme. I'd personally like it if anyone except for this man could recite this at my funeral (no offense, Aaron Freeman, I think you're brilliant.) Maybe Morgan Freeman could do it instead?)

Grave goods of the late Deanna Louise..?

For someone who wants to donate their body to science, the idea of burial with material things is a hard concept to comprehend. I don't want to get all 'holier-than-thou' on anybody, but personally I'd like to make my last hurrah about generosity and the propagation of knowledge rather than about a selfish grab at a spot in the earth with all my pretty things. This sounds demeaning to those that believe in burial of the dead, so I digress. There are very many factors that surround the purposes of inhumation and grave goods, and I really shouldn't brag of being above what I don't understand. It's just that ideally, that's not how I want to be remembered. It seems stagnant and too permanent for my liking. I can't make a decision about what I want right now for dinner, let alone what I'd want some "archaeologist" to find with my bones a thousand or so years from now when digging holes along a soon to be <insert new biofuel of the 3000's here> pipeline. I feel the same about anything else that's permanent. Tattoos, what you wrote in someone's yearbook once, what you looked like in your photo in said yearbook, your decision to start or to not start your own family, your famous last words.. etcetera.

But in the name of spontaneity and assigned course work, here is a list of possible items I think would shed light on who I was for whomever gets the gruesome privilege of discovering my decaying remains:

• A photo album depicting the best sides of anyone (animals included) that has ever been close to me. I'm thinking family, friends, co-workers, people that have triggered important epiphanies for me.. And I want my people to look their best, even when I look like a pile of calcium and some strange coloured dirt. But I guess photos decay too. Shoot.
• Books. Preferably recommended books that I have yet to read, because the ones I have will already be with me! (How's that for spiritual?)
• The afghan that my Grandma Williams knit for me when I was very young that has made it every house I've ever called home. Family is important!
• Some sand or maybe a quintessential plastic cup from the cabin at my favourite place in the world, Gallagher Lake.
• Memoirs from friendships I've formed. I have a few in my life already, like t-shirts signed by friends or teammates or my box of kept letters and cards and notes. I guess something similar to the guestbook at a bed and breakfast, at a wedding, or if you want to get all death oriented, at a chapel funeral. This might also include things that have been made or given to me by a close friend or family member, like jewelry.
• Something that smells good and familiar to combat the dank dirt. Maybe a friend's perfume, ground coffee beans or oil of bergamont, fresh basil or rosemary, my dad's antiperspirant..?
• Deja Entendu by Brand New (in some media form), because everyone (even in the future) should listen to it intimately.

Alternatively, here are some things my roommates suggested:
*I'm aware of the overlap.
My figure skates and rugby ball, photos of closest friends, grandma's afghan (or something else that I keep close that is special from childhood), clove cigarettes (shared amongst friends for the last four years, at least), favourite books (Survivor by Chuck Pahlaniuk because it was the last one I recommended to one of them).

When I review my list, it seems very apparent that I would prefer to be remembered for the people I knew and what they would say about me, rather than what I want to portray myself as. When I think about the grave goods throughout the Upper Paleolithic and how they are oftentimes used to determine social status or stratification, I can help but wonder what someone would gain from analyzing mine in the same fashion.

I found a blog posting online that discusses the purpose of modern day grave goods as a celebration of life, rather than as a reflection of identity. It makes the whole thing a little less serious in my head, and I can grasp it a little better. That is, until I run into something like this:

From LA Times: Apple iPad2 replicas burned, sent to afterlife in Chinese Qingming Festival

Consumerism is going to be such an embarrassing legacy.

Anyways. It's such a strange concept to use material things to indicate identity everchanging. This blog prompted me all the way back to the 7th grade assignment of self-addressed letters. So fascinating to see how much you change in such a short few years. Are graves, too, just like a time capsule? EPIPHANY.

(By the way, figured out the dinner situation.)