27,375 Days

27,375 days……that is the average life span of a human on Earth. If you’re wondering, that is around 75 years. Of course, this number might fluctuate depending on genetics, environmental factors, accidents, and how well you take care of yourself.

When I first saw this number, I gave no initial thought to where I fell on this continuum until I did the math. Hmmmm….I was surprised to realize how many days I have already lived to this point; but, the real surprise was the number of days left between where I am today and the “average”.

This gets a person to thinking. In the movie “Shawshank Redemption”, Tim Robbin’s character says to his inmate counterpart (played by Morgan Freeman), “You get busy living, or you get busy dying.” During the course of my mother’s illness, she would protest many opportunities for assistance doing things and she certainly didn’t like feeling limited in her abilities. She wold rebuke us around her by saying, “Life is for the living.” Wise words.

As I have moved into my 50’s, I think about her quite a bit. I try to remember that when she was my current age (51), she was in the process of dying. She knew it. The end was coming and she was sucking the marrow out of each and every day. My mother was born on March 21, 1951, and left this world on December 4, 2002. She lived 18,887 days.

18,887 days. The distance between the “average” and her life span seems like a lot in my mind.

On Saturday, September 3rd of this year (2022), I officially outlived my mother by ONE earthly day. I saw more sunrises and sunsets than she did. This fact was not lost on me. I can’t say precisely what emotion I felt when that realization fell over me. Elation? Sadness?

No.

I laid down Saturday night to close out my 18,888th day of life with an acute sense of purpose and gratitude. I have an opportunity to carve out a second “half” of life that my mother never saw this side of heaven.

In the last six weeks, a lot has happened in my world. My first grandchild, Thomas, was born. I started my 30th (eeek) year in public education. I made a heartbreaking decision about how I would move forward with the rest of my life. In these few weeks, I have held both joy and sadness, delight and anger, hope and disappointment, and dreams hoped for and a life released.

27,375 days.

18,888 lived.

This is my one, wonderful life. I have actively participated in its creation. I have actively participated in dismantling some of it along the way. Life is for the living.

How will you live yours?