I dreamt of my mother a little while ago, napping on this September Saturday’s gray, late afternoon. I swear I am not altering or embellishing an ounce of this. There is no poetic license here.

I had been sitting in her apartment’s living room with my laptop in front of me, listening to music on my headphones. I was nearly transfixed by a number of things I wanted to accomplish. I noticed movement from the corner of my eye, and I looked up in surprise to note my mother peeking cautiously around the corner of the hallway. It was clear that she was asking me something.

I couldn’t hear a word. I removed my headphones and asked her to repeat herself — and I was then surprised that I still couldn’t understand a word of her query, because her speech was strangely muffled. (Dreams seldom make sense.)

A second later and she was outside her apartment’s doorway, wearing a nice coat. Her car keys were in one hand, and her handbag was in the other. Her language was still incredbly difficult to decipher, and I was utterly confused as to why. (Was something wrong with her or with me?) But it was clear that she was asking me something. It was also clear that she was rushed.

Finally, a few bits of her query became comprehensible. “I just want to go somewhere, do something.”

“What? Where?”

“I don’t know — something fun.”  She just wanted to enjoy what was left of the day.

“Right now? Why? Why the rush? You don’t even know where you want us to go?”

She said something about both of our responsibilities being met for the day, though I can’t remember her exact words. (Maybe she’d slipped back into that odd unintelligibility of the dream itself.) She definitely said something about her electric bill being paid, and she asked me if I had anything in front of me that was so important that I couldn’t put it off until the following day.

She told me she wanted to get in the car and depart for our destination immediately.

“Life is short,” she told me. Here her words were distinct.

I felt the beginnings of a protest purse forward from my lips. I had a lot to do.

But I noticed how desperate she seemed, and how that desperation bordered on sadness. So I shrugged and told her it would be okay. I arose from the chair at once and reached for my wallet and keys.

Here, perhaps predictably, was where the dream ended. I was literally sitting up and searching my room for my wallet and keys when the memory dawned across me that my mother died eight years ago.

My friends, please make time for your loved ones. Look up from your work, listen to them. Put some work aside, if you can, at least until tomorrow. Go somewhere, do something — something fun.

Life is short.