Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.
Mother Teresa

Lately, I have begun thinking that I have the math all wrong. For much of my life, there has been one abiding equation that has driven me: 1 + 1000. That is, I have looked at most of my life as a very small number that would, God willing, eventually culminate is a really large number, an ultimate act or accomplishment that would finalize a life well-lived. When I perceived that this had not–and would not–happen before retirement, I set my sites on post-retirement. Maybe then, I would score the big number. Maybe then, I would do something to warrant the math that had lingered like the proverbial carrot in the distance. Maybe.

Sitting at the bedside of my father in his final weeks, I knew that I was in the presence of a life that had been very well-lived, a life represented by the largest of numbers, by words and deeds unparalleled in my eyes. Today, as I sit at my desk, the volumes of his life’s work sit before me as reminders of the numbers that doubled, then tripled, then grew exponentially into greatness. Not merely the number of books he had written or poems he had published–or even the number of students he had taught. But the indelible presence of something greater than himself. This was math to defy even the finest calculator.

As children, we feast on the words and encouragement of America: Dream big; You can be anything you want to be; The sky is the limit. For a season, celebrity and professional athletic status hang from low branches, like ripe fruit to be plucked by any and all. For a season, life spreads out like a smorgasbord, and all one has to do is choose from the bounty before them, returning a plate uneaten if it isn’t to one’s liking and choosing again. And again. When my daughter declared that she would be in the Ice Capades, I smiled over the pile of student essays I was grading, unfolded laundry, an empty bag of Cheetos, and a pile of unread newspapers at my feet. Oh, to be five years old and dreaming of sequined splendor on the ice!

And even as we grow into adulthood and our life’s work begins to unfold before us, there is that lingering echo: You can be what you want to be. It’s not too late if you work hard and commit yourself to your dreams. We put our noses to the grindstone, we keep our eyes on the prize, we persist. For the spoils go to the victor, and surely, we are destined to be victors at some point in time. Right?

Just the other day, I was talking with a friend who said that we should arrange a play-date for his daughter and my granddaughter. In a world of little girls who grow up far too quickly, these are girls who love to be home, to play imaginatively, to care for their little brothers, and–for want of a better word–are genuinely “nice” people. They may not be sports stars or leaders of the middle/high school pack, but they will be good friends to all. In the world’s eyes, their numbers will be infinitesimally small, their equations a series of quarters and halves, a math of ordinary kind acts that pale on the stage of district championships and most-likely-to-succeed honors. But years after the senior prom and the state softball championship, they will be young women whom others seek as confidantes. Their kindness and loyalty may not be defined by a single great deed but by too many small acts to count.

Mother Teresa was a better mathematician than most. She understood that the sum of small acts done with great love is a large sum. In the slums of Calcutta, she loved greatly–one man, one woman, one child at a time. In the midst of great throngs, her love was laser-focused, endowing each recipient with the very best of what she could give. I sincerely doubt that Mother Teresa had her sites set on a single act of greatness which would define her life. She was far too occupied with small acts committed with great love. In the eyes of God and the countless individuals she helped and loved, these small things are clearly and blessedly equal to any one great thing.

If my father’s math featured large numbers, my mother’s, like Mother Teresa’s, featured a series of many small numbers added, lovingly, over a lifetime. She, too, has always committed herself to small things done with great love. And in the most wonderful paradox, those small things are honestly huge. Their size and worth dwarfs almost any and everything in their midst. Ask anyone who knows my mother, and they will testify to this, for they have been beneficiaries of these acts and this love. She anticipates what others need before they are often even aware that they need it; she opens her house and her heart instinctively. Those who visit are loathe to leave, for they find magnificent comfort and peace in her presence. And if there is coffee and pie, so much the better.

I think I have been waiting for my life to begin. And to end with a bang, with a huge number, some marvelous thing to hang my hat upon. But in truth and in spite of my best laid plans, my math has been quietly working itself out. The fact that I have not truly understood nor taken to heart the good math of the Mother Teresas and Marcia Welches of the world is sad. But then, I was never good at math–not the old math or the new math. I shouldn’t be surprised, then, that the most important math of my life has eluded me until now.

I sincerely doubt that my children will sit at their desks with the volumes of my written work, the large sum of my life, before them. What I can hope for, however, is that many small acts done with great love will live in their memories and light their way. I can hope for the laser-focus of living fully in the moment, giving all in love. I can hope that I grow up to be my mother. And that is the best math, indeed.