Mortality Math

by Roberta Ness

Decoding the numbers behind life's final equation

Welcome! Welcome! Let me give you a hug. Your being here just lit up this dreary winter’s day for me. As you know, as much as I’ve tried to quiet my constant recollections about your dad, David, here I am a year later, still actively grieving. That’s why I took your advice and went to a grief support group.

Sitting in a circle with other mourners, I glanced at the impossibly young woman next to me. When she spoke, she said, “Just six weeks ago, I lost my brother, Raol, age 21.”

I girded myself.

“I took care of him during his last year,” she continued, bemoaning all the failed attempts to extend her brother’s life as he grew hairless, chronically dizzy, and shit his pants. “He loved to mess with people. In this final week, all he wanted was to taste whiskey since he’d just turned legal age, and to drive his truck which he was far too feeble to do safely. “Finally, we let him take his little spree, with me in the passenger’s seat, white knuckled. That outing made me love him more than all the medical turmoil we’d gone through together.”

I held my tears until I got to the parking lot…