Scary, beautiful math

None of us know how long we will live.  I turned forty-two this year.  My mom died at age fifty-seven.  If I assume that I'll die of breast cancer just like her (which I believe out of irrational fear), then I only have about fifteen years left.   And that is some seriously scary, beautiful math. 

The beautiful part is the opportunity to ask myself this universal existential question, “What would I do differently if I knew I would die tomorrow, next year, or in fifteen years?”  I actually don’t know the answer.  At the stage of life I’m in, I don't want to do anything more.  Going skydiving and rocky mountain climbing like a Tim McGraw song just feels like more work.  Instead of a bucket list, I think I would spend the rest of my days saying thank you to the people that meant the most to me.  I would go around and tell them why, what, and how they changed me, and hopefully changing them.

The scary part is of course thinking about mortality.  But I do not fear death.  I witnessed the last breath of Mom's life, holding her hand as her soul departed from her physical body.  Neither of us at that moment feared death, we simply feared the unknown path of living without each other.  

I'm certain mom felt this way.  One of mom's co-workers wrote this memory of her on one of The Cards at her funeral:

“Joan and I were discussing one day what the after-life might be life. She said, 'Imagine a baby in a womb all warm and comfortable and fed.  It knows no other place and is perfectly content where it is.  Now someone tells that baby it has to leave its home and go through birth.  But the baby is frightened, doesn’t know what’s waiting for it in the next world, and doesn’t want to leave.  Once the baby comes out (not without struggle), born into new life, it sees it had nothing to be afraid of.'

I told Joan how wonderful that was and how I will always think of death in that way, not an ending, but a new beginning.  She replied, 'I hope it’s that way.'”  - D

I hope it's that way, too.  For you and for me.  Until then, I'll keep adding up happy days, subtracting bad ones, and multiplying my gratitude for the people in my life.  For this is the most beautiful, yet scary, math I can practice.