PLEASE without being graphic, but where does everything go? Ashes are just the carbon that you contained? I don’t know what else makes us up, but must be released into the atmosphere or something no?
I’m a big fan of Neil Degrass Tyson’s videos, and learning about the universe is basically my substitute for religion. My sister died yesterday after a battle with cancer. And being the sciencey astro nerd of an uncle, I need a little better understanding of what makes us up, to explain what remains to get used again. To her 16 yo daughter who isn’t particularly religious either, but is obviously in a pretty sensitive state, as am I. Looking for comfort.
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Most of our bodyweight is water. Water under fire becomes vapor. So you can say that people becomes a part of clouds when cremated, if you want to be poetic.
The carbon based stuff is burned into carbonic gas. (CO2) . CO2 becomes parts of the plants by photosynthesis and turn back into the air we breathe.
The last remainer is the ashes. Ashes are mineral salts, typically. If you throw them into the nature it will also eventually become parts of the plants, and then us again.
It is an eternal cycle.
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