If your lifeEvents is a collection, then you can get the size of the collection using jstl fn:length
<c:out value="${fn:length(lifeEvents)}" /> <%-- size of liveEvents --%> Make sure you have added the following taglib at the top of your page to allow the fn namespace.
<%@ taglib prefix="fn" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/functions" %>
亲测可用。