Nothing caps off a long day like receiving an email from your mother with the subject being “Directive.” Kind of makes one long for a solicitation from a Nigerian “businessman” or an email informing me that single Asian women think I am “hot.” On second thought . . .

Truth be told, it was not a complete shock that my mom sent me her last will and testament outlining her wishes for the after-the-inevitable. For many years my mom was honestly and adamantly expressed her desires. There will be no funeral under any circumstance. She wants to be cremated, not buried. And my brother and I can fight until the last breath over the inheritance.

It is not like she has been looking forward to it, but Mom wants to be prepared. Ironically, I have been preparing for her death since I was young. No, I have not been writing out lists or anything of the sort. But I have always carried with me an awareness of the fragility of life and how quickly life can become death. How it takes only a moment for life on earth to become life in Heaven.

For many years I have practiced the three-day rule, which is that I will always call mom if I have not heard from her in three days to check to see if she is still alive. Ghoulish? Not really for someone of Irish heritage. Quirky and a bit odd? Sure.

There have been a number of occasions when extreme panic and fear have overwhelmed me after some radio silence. And there have been a couple of other scares. One, in particular, comes to mind.

One of my mom’s guilty pleasures is The Nap. It is as the title indicates – my mom would “close her eyes” for a bit mid-afternoon or early evening to refresh her energy stores. (Took a lot of energy dealing with a moody, sarcastic teenage daughter)

Well, one evening my mom decided to “close her eyes” in between the television programs we were watching. We were living in London at the time and Channel 4 would air episodes of The Golden Girls and Cheers, but a half-hour apart. They also aired Miami Vice, the Cosby Show and NFL football, albeit a week after the actual games took place. Remember, this was the 1980s and satellite television and the Internet were not commonplace.

When it was time to awaken Sleeping Beauty from her sweet slumber, I turned and yelled in my dulcet tones, “Mom, get up.” Nothing. Repeat. Still nothing. I raised my voice several octaves and still no movement. The panic set in as thoughts that my mom was, in fact, lying dead on the couch rushed through my mind.

I stood up, paced around frantically and called again for my mom to get up. Nothing. I ran down the stairs, opened the front door with the intention of going next door to alert the neighbors that my mom had died.

For no reason in particular it occurred to me that I might look like a right idiot if she was not dead and I had all but lost my wits. No, I had not shaken her because the idea of touching a dead body kind of freaked me out.

Back upstairs I went and after taking in a deep breath I screamed, “Mom, get up!” She did not get up, but she did open her eyes and ask me, “Why are you screaming, I am awake!”

It was a few years later that I told my mom the story. The notion of my mom dying has less to do with being abandoned. It is the phantom pain that strikes unease. It is seeing something in the paper that only she would appreciate and going to pick up the phone only to realize she is gone. It is not having to call her every Saturday to inform her of the Sunday political show schedule. We lived together for so many years and have talked almost daily when living in separate cities that her absence will leave an unimaginable void.

It is not her death that I fear, but my life after it. While it is important to plan for one’s death, it is more important to plan for one’s life. So, I shall file the directive and spend every day from now until then appreciating every moment I have with her – good or bad.