The Death Of Nero It took the death of a hamster for me to confront my own mortality. Until then, I had been aware of death, but I didn't foresee it as an inescapable option for myself. Like when I was six, and my parents told me, "Your Grandpa passed away last night." Instead of feeling sadness, my mind brought up a file of all the euphemisms I'd ever heard for death on the cartoons. "So, you mean he kicked the bucket?" I said. My parents laughed at this, so I continued, "You mean, he saw curtains and bought the big one and he croaked?" But when Nero, the aforementioned hamster, "croaked" I couldn't believe it. I put off burying him partly because of my usual procrastination and partly because I kept having dreams that Nero had come back to life. Eventually, the furry little corpse began to stink, though, and Dad said I had to bury him - pronto. That night, I could not get to sleep; my breathing was annoying, my heart beat too loudly, and worst of all, I could feel my pulse throughout my entire body. If I thought of my finger, I would feel my pulse throbbing in my finger; if I thought of my leg, or my toes or my ears, it was the same. And while my pulse was saying, "life, life, life," the silence in between it was chanting, "death, death, death." And that's when it hit me; I could die at any moment. People died all the time. How many people had died all over the world today? Someone, somewhere, was dying right at this very instant. One day it would be my turn. Suddenly the line in the prayer I said each night, "If I should die before I wake," scared me. What if I died in my sleep? And what if death was like those moments of nothingness in between wakefulness and dreaming? Except it would last forever... That was the worst thought of all; I didn't want my self to disappear like that. I wanted to fall asleep, but I didn't want to let go of my consciousness because I might never get it back, so as soon as I would feel my awareness fading, a jolt of adrenaline would go through me and I'd open my eyes again. Finally, I couldn't take it any more. I got out of bed to see if Dad was up. Sure enough, I found him downstairs eating a bowl of popcorn with the cat and the dog on his lap. The only light in the room was from a PBS show on war planes. All I could see of Dad's face was the bluish reflection of the tv in his glasses. Seeing my teary face he asked, "What's wrong, Twink?" "I don't want to die!" I wailed and began sobbing all over again. At this, Dad seemed a bit amused, but I found his nonchalance comforting. He invited me up onto his lap, being careful not to disturb the animals, and let me cry for a while. Finally I asked the big question, "What happens after you die?" and Dad admitted that he didn't really know, in fact, no living person knew for sure. This wasn't what I wanted to hear, especially since my dad was the smartest person I knew, but I appreciated his honesty. I don't think we said much after that; I just know that it was comforting to sit on his lap, absently watching planes land on aircraft carriers and eating popcorn until I was too tired to keep my eyes open.