How many times will you see them again?

Two questions about you, three about them. Nothing is saved and nothing is sent.

Now one person.

Pick the one you thought of first.

What you call them

The year they were born

The year, not the date. We do not want their birthday.

Their life table

How many times did you see them last year

Last year, not a typical year. Guess if you have to.

One of us has been given a different horizon

Leave this alone unless somebody has actually been told something. A life table only knows what happens to a hundred thousand strangers, so if either of you has a diagnosis or a condition it cannot know about, it is wrong and you are right — put the number here and the arithmetic will stop counting past it.

Years to expect for them

Years to expect for you

This is a ceiling, not a prediction — it tells the sum where to stop, and it is never shown to anybody or sent anywhere. If you are here because today feels unbearable rather than because of something you were told, this page is the better one.

If nothing else goes wrong

Say something now

or open it in Messages or WhatsApp

You pick who it goes to. We never see their number and we never send anything for you.

Where this number comes from, and how wrong it is

One small thing to do today · Your life as a grid of weeks · How the number works

Not this one.

This part is for people over 18, so there is no number for you here. That is a rule we set ourselves, not a judgement about you.

The thing underneath it still works, though, and it is the better half anyway: your life as a grid of weeks. No estimate, no arithmetic about anybody’s death — just every week you have already lived, which is a real number.

If you came here because you are having a bad time, this page is better than this one.