My New Math

A few weeks ago, I was sitting on the couch of my dad's new house listening to him and a contractor debate raising the house and installing three-panel windows. As the conversation wound around the elements of the house, we inevitably got around to the main reason my dad was in a new place: my mom's death.

The contractor turned to me with a really sad smile and expressed her condolences. She lost her dad in October, just two months before we lost Momma. Instinctively, I responded with "I am so sorry. You know how we feel."

She looked alarmed as soon as I said it. "No. I don't know how you feel. I am 58. You are a baby. I don't know how you feel."

And immediately, I started doing the math in my head. She is 58. I am 29. She had her dad twice as long as I had my mom. Twice as many Christmases and birthdays. Twice as many summer nights, staying up late, sunkissed and happy. Twice as many random wake up calls and cards just to say I love you. Twice as many arguments about whether or not I really need a cardigan for the weather and twice as many debates about who really broke her food processor in 2001. Twice. twice. twice.

And B. If my mom lived until I was 58, B would be 31. An adult. She might have her own baby. Momma would have been an integral part of her life. A shaping force, not just a story to accompany pictures.

I find myself doing that math a lot lately. My dad has told me previously that after his parents died, he found himself always whispering the numbers to my mom at friends' parents' funerals. I find myself doing it constantly these days.

I can't hear about a death without the numbers running through my head. Were they younger than my mom? Or older? If she had lived that long, how many more years would I have had? Would she have met our second baby? Our third? Would she have been able to enjoy retirement? See one of her kids hit 40?

It is starting with birthdays now, too. A Facebook post about a grandmother's 80th sends me reeling. If mom had lived to be 80, we would have had her until 2028. 2028. 15 more years.15 more of everything.

Sometimes, I can step back and realize how lucky I am. Despite the shock of the sudden loss, I still had her for 29 years. Almost three decades of love, support, and laughter. I have dear friends from high school and college who lost their moms in their teens. Their moms missed high school graduations, arranging their college dorm rooms only the way moms can, first jobs, weddings, ever holding their grandbabies. I know they would give anything to have their moms until just after their 29th birthdays... even just to see their 20th birthday.

But this is my own personal new math. Twenty-nine years doesn't seem like nearly long enough and just painfully abbreviated.

Momma often talked about how losing her own mom at 37 was too, too young. How I wish I could laugh with her now and tell her how much those extra eight years would mean to me. She would have patted my hand and said "I know, honey. I know."

Sixty-five years was not enough for her be on this earth. Twenty-nine years was not enough for me to have my mom. It was too, too short. But in those 65 years, she did more living than most could do in 600 years. She loved fiercely. She loved unconditionally. She loved wholeheartedly. She loved life and everyone around her.

And she always hated math, anyway.

Me, Momma, and Albert 1985

Momma's 65th Birthday Party - 2013