I was bereaved last year when my son Graeme sadly took his own life at only 41 years. I had a humanist celebrant conduct a memorial in celebration of his life at his cremation. We played some of his favourite music, and mine, had his friends read poetry and relate anecdotes, and his brother talked of their childhood together and of family holidays in happier times. We then went off to eat, drink and happily talk and reminisce fondly of our times with him. I don’t really think having a physicist at the memorial would have been helpful to any of us, we already know the laws of physics in our family, but I realise that it may help others who have not such an understanding. It isn’t the thought of their energy still existing that gives the grieving comfort, but cherishing and holding on to the memories and the joy of their existence. I think speaking from recent personal experience, expressions of kindness, understanding, and human touch, are by far the best comforters at times of bereavement.

I've already made it clear that under no circumstances is there to be a funeral for me when I die.
Simple cremation only. No funeral service.
My nephew says he's going to throw a party and have a "roast", ala the Friars Club.
Everyone is going to drink heavily and insult me.
I think that will be way more fun for everyone.
Funerals are ridiculous traditions and I detest the entire funeral industry.
And everyone who knows me, knows this.

It works for me because, well, I'll be fucking dead.

In some weird way, I actually LOVE this, and I do find it comforting (having had my uncle pass away this past 02 NOV 2019).

I get where you're coming from with a logical approach to death & everything, but IMHO, it would not be of much comfort to me personally. It reminds me of how my religious mother said something like "he will always be with you" after not husband died. Not he's not. He's not here. It's not the same. It feels more like a chunk of me is missing, rather than a piece of him being with me. But, people tend not to understand this until they've experienced the loss of one of your closest loved ones. Your entire world is ripped out from under you & you have to relearn how to live your life. For me, it was my husband. We were only married a year, a month, & three days when cancer took his life. He was only 37 & I was only 29. Is it interesting to know that his energy will always be out there? Sure, but I wouldn't say it's comforting.

Just my two cents, anyways.

That is not what the grieving family want to hear no matter how true this may be.

Thanks for this. A close friend is a physicist and I sent him this quote and suggested he take up a new calling.

Not bad. I like the general spirit that our substance is part of our world even after death.

Well I like it! Looks like some of the responded here didn’t get it.

Nice post

I'd rather have my favorite bartender give my eulogy...

...which is the perfect excuse to leave work for the afternoon.

::: sidles up to bar and gives bartender an intent look ::: "Yah, make that two fingers in a really wide glass... So, when the time comes, what will you say at my funeral...?"

Brilliant.

This made me shed a tear. Absolutely what I believed but could never explain.

Awesome

When I was a boy and my mother had death knocking at the door, she took me outside one clear evening and waved at the stars.
She said, do you see those?
I said of course Ma.
She said, "after I am gone, come outside and look at the stars, find the one thats blinking, that'l be me winking at ya" That was a family tradition, that the stars were our monuments.
Years later I would discover that was a commonly held belief system amongst the Algonquins and it had somehow bled into the Puritan cultural background of NE/CA, where my kin had come from since before America was America.

Its a fond sentiment.

"so they will understand that your energy has not died"
Human energy is not what people see as "ME", that would be conciousness, and we have no evidence at all that conciousness can exist after death without a brain. We also have reams of data showing that conciousness can be altered and transformed through trauma, drugs, surgery and so forth.

That evidence clearly shows conciousness is brain dependent.
If you disagree with that, please tell my TBI, it does not care.

WE, that is humans, are an evolved algorythm, a pattern which is expressed. We are like a software program running on a unit, if the unit fails there is no more program as it has nothing to run on. IMHO

Before my sibs died I asked them to put my remains away at minimal cost and to spend the rest on a party. Alas.

I prefer the sentiments of Thomas Hardy, as quoted in The Dogs of War:

"That _ be not told of my death, or made to grieve on account of me; & that I be not bury'd in consecrated ground; & that no sexton be asked to toll the bell; & that nobody is wished to see my dead body; & that no mourners walk behind me at my funeral; & that no flowers be planted on my grave, & that no man remember me; to this I put my name."

I genuinely did this at my father's funeral a month ago, though nowhere near to this extent.

I grew tiresome that all the rituals focussed on the greatness of God, yet nothing being spoken about the life of my father. Also, I was humbled by the fact that once cancer had taken its hold through a physical process, it was not possible to negotiate with physics.

I therefore said that however much one prays, or whatever someone may believe, physics will march on and that everyone should make the most of the limited time available in their lives.

I love this! And my family would too!

Aaron Freeman is not a physicist, he is a comedian who converted to judaism from catholicism. I suspected immediately because physicists aren't this wordy or would ever say amen.

I’m going to file this away and hope I can find it when I need it. It’s really nice to know and read all this, but if someone tried to tell me this while I was crying at my sister’s funeral, I’d probably knock them out. You gotta get me at the right time.

See the bird fly, see the fish jump, there I am.

I thought I responded to this post, or perhaps it was a similar one, but this is what I wrote after the untimely passing of my younger brother.

It's been a couple of weeks since my brother passed and I have not really said anything about it For the rest of my life Christmas will always be the time Jamie left this life. But it will also be the time that he rejoined the greater universe. I am not a religious man and I don't know what lies beyond this life if anything. I do know a few things. The tiniest particles in our bodies, the atoms of calcium in our bones, the iron in our blood, all of these are born in the heart of a star. When this star reaches the end of its life cycle, it erupts and spreads these atoms into the universe where they join other elements and give birth to another star. Some of these starts have planets and, on our little bit of star stuff, life is born. I like to think that my brother has simply gone back to the universe and the particles that once were him will, one day, be scattered once again. I like to think that some of him will become part of another world, another living thing, perhaps a brother who loves and is loved. A writer once said that we all have time machines. Those that take us into the future are our dreams. The ones that take us to the past are called memory. I find Jamie when I use either one.

And this was what I wrote when my mother passed a couple of weeks later.

It happened again yesterday. I was walking across the parking lot at Lowe's and it happened. I saw a small, older lady with grey hair and just for a second I saw my Mom. Now she passed a couple of weeks ago and reality set in after barely a second but for that second she was alive again for me. Some people might find this distressing but I find an odd comfort in it. I know it will stop eventually but until it does I feel like she is close and my memories can't fade like they will inevitably do. I hope I will continue to see her in little unexpected ways and places. I will be sad when I realize it is not happening any longer and my brief moments of memory are no more. I love you Mom.

Life is a condition, something is or is not alive. What makes life so special is the way you live it, how you affect others, the joy you share, the love you give, all of that lives beyond this fleeting instant of the cosmic clock. Celebrate the lives of those who've gone before us, keep their memory alive, always cherish the love you gave and received .

This is fantastic. Tremendously comforting and awe-inspiring.

Good application of Science. It can involve feelings.