A love that lasts when the stars grow cold

I'm a romantic. I believe in love that lasts forever. But not in any metaphorical or faith based way. I got proof.

Who am I? My physical atoms? No, they get recycled constantly, like water in a river. The real me is the river itself, the genes and the memes. When you love someone those genes and memes are mixed and the river continues stronger through the next regeneration.

Some of me, some of my genes, can be traced back to the days when the Earth was new born, and the first life fought to survive a burning hell (the Hadean period), and won. Those winning genes are still alive in my body, 3.8 billion years later! It's a proud heritage, and the love that creates the next generation will similarly last forever. These same genes, and their loved ones, will be holding hands in 900 million years as technology allows us to leave the then uninhabitable earth. These same genes, still in love, will be mixing and remixing and come back to visit the Earth in 5 billion years, sitting on a rock watching as the sun expands and burns off the remains of the planet's surface. By then our memes, through evolved technology, will have created new worlds. Those memes are being created now.

As we raise the children we love, we pass our ideas on, and the best of those ideas last forever.

As we hold children and cuddle them and give them confidence and help them with homework, we are ensuring that our love - expressed in their genes and memes - will still be together and loving and pro-creating long after the current stars grow cold. Love we share now, the things we do, really do last forever. And I MEAN forever.