Cosmos - | Carl Sagan

Somewhere, across the galaxy, photons that had touched her grandfather’s face were still traveling outward at the speed of light. They would never stop. Neither would the carbon from his smile, the calcium from his hands.

In the dim light of a falling autumn afternoon, a young woman named Ariadne climbed the rickety ladder to her grandfather’s attic. He had died three weeks ago, and the family had finally gathered to sort through what he’d left behind: old tools, yellowed photographs, a clock that no longer ticked. Cosmos - Carl Sagan

She thought: Every atom in my left hand came from a different star than the atoms in my right hand. My heart pumps iron that once shone at the center of a sun. I am older than the Earth. I am younger than the light from Andromeda. Somewhere, across the galaxy, photons that had touched

“We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean,” Sagan wrote. “We are ready at last to set sail for the stars.” In the dim light of a falling autumn

Ariadne lay back on the weathered wood of the pier. The book rested on her chest, rising and falling with her breath.

“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood—all were forged in the hearts of collapsing stars.”