I have Resting Question Face (RQF). Anyone who’s ever taken a class or worked with me will confirm. In high school I rarely put up my hand, but teachers always called on me to ask if I had a question. And I always had a question.
One class I never quite clicked with was science. I’m not sure why, maybe the science goggles blocked my RQF? Whatever the reason, I didn’t keep it up once it became elective. This is a shame, and not just because I’m the daughter of two engineers, but because I wish I knew more now.1
I have a curious mind and a desperate desire to understand things. I wish I understood how microwaves work, how the universe is expanding and what we are expanding into, and every time I’m hurtling through the air at 800 k’s an hour, how planes fly?!2
I have some serious knowledge gaps. I can read the theories. I know I can google it. I google things, but there is a difference between reading something and fully knowing and understanding. I’m missing something.
I’ve always felt the desire to know everything, while at the same time feeling I know nothing.
And when Mike died this was reinforced in a big way. Confusion and a lack of understanding dominated my early grief. I didn’t know what to think. About a lot of things, and about what happened next.
Afterlife beliefs and questions
Having faith, if it’s helpful, can be great. And It’s not unusual for a significant loss to challenge that faith too.
I didn’t have any strong beliefs about the afterlife. I was disconnected with the religious views that I was raised in and didn’t have a solid idea in what happened after death. I thought of before I was born, that nothingness, and that death would be something similar.
Prior to Mike’s death, I hadn’t given it that much thought. I had grieved the death of my grandparents, but their deaths were anticipated. I know they believed in heaven and that comforted me. But it wasn’t my belief.
Mike’s death was completely shocking and out of order. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.
Among the total devastation grieving my husband, our life together, and our future there were also some big questions.
Was that it? What did it mean? What was the point of any of it? Where was he now?
When I felt like all I had was questions, I looked to truths I could grasp to.
He was dead. His body was buried 4,392 kilometres from me. Was Mike his body? When the coroner took him away, she allowed me time to say goodbye. This didn’t take long because I knew he wasn’t in there. His body didn’t feel like him anymore. The hand no longer squeezed back. That much I was sure of.
Then, was he just “gone”?
All that life and character and love, just ended?
Was he no longer in existence?
Fin?
These were not comforting thoughts.
Mike grew up in a Jewish culture and while he was not exactly practising, I took some comfort in some of the Jewish customs after his death. His family included me in ceremonies like the lighting of candles, Kaddish prayers and the Yahrzeit anniversary.
And it wasn’t my culture. I didn’t know the customs and didn’t have the energy to learn nor the people around me to show me the way.
So, I continued muddling along, carrying my unanswered questions with no one to ask.
Enter Aaron Freeman with “You want a physicist to speak at your funeral”
It wasn’t until I came across this piece from commentator Aaron Freeman that I found some comfort. I’ll share some quotes, but recommend listening to the audio (3 minutes) in the author’s voice, or see the link for the transcript.
“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.”
Hearing this was the first time I felt some comfort and peace in thinking about life after death and where Mike was now. And I’m sharing in share in case it helps you too.
When we die, our energy is still here. Whatever our religious or afterlife beliefs. These are some indisputable facts. I found so much comfort and beauty in knowing Mike’s energy could not be destroyed. While I felt on an emotional level his energy would never be destroyed, I took comfort in knowing that scientifically undeniably it CAN’T be destroyed.3
Connection through knowing
“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 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.”
I still think about this, especially when I’m in a place I went with Mike. I think about the photons that bounced off his smile and were sent in different directions. I think about his energy and it gives me a warm feeling inside. It’s connection and remembering with joy, and sometimes sorrow, longing, pain. It’s all still connection.
There are so many unknowns in my world. Unlike understanding how popcorn pops in the microwave, the unknowns I frequently find myself in are questions and that I will likely never get answers to. Some things can’t be googled. I dwell in the existential. None of us knows what next. And whatever our faith, these are some scientific facts to lean on. This commentary provided some salve for my questions. The concepts were something to grasp onto when I felt so adrift in the unknown.
My Resting Question Face will carry on, and it will break into a joyful smile as I remember Mike and knows that his energy carries on in the universe.
“According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you’re just less orderly. Amen.”
I’m grateful for this gift – thank you Aaron Freeman!
Questions to ponder because… well… see above
Did your experience with a death or loss challenge your faith or beliefs?
Was there anything you found that brought you some comfort?
Did you connect with something unexpected like science or a subject you hadn’t previously associated with grief and death?
