September 12, 1998

I don't know, maybe I'm just being a complete softy about this whole thing, but I think that any and every life should be able to be mourned over when it ceases to continue. Not just humans, not just pets large enough for a leash, not just domesticated animals, etc. etc. etc. So, with this frame of mind having taken over my soul (for this week, anyway), it can be expected that I feel guilty and sad, and am experiencing a nice little bout of insomnia this week. I'd be a terrible human being otherwise.

It's just that life, that consciousness that most people not living in a cemetery take for granted every day, has always seemed so precious. Even if it's like what his was. A metal cage, a metal wheel he didn't particularly care for, pine shavings, a huge bowl of sunflower seeds, corn kernels, and various other edible objects, a plastic sphere he didn't particularly want to run around in, and to top it all off, this giant hand that came down and picked him up once or twice a day. What a life. But, still, it was consciousness. It was electricity passing from nerve to nerve, it was a decision to move one way instead of the other, it was something not even the best of scientists today can explain. Definitely something important, I think.

Death. Suddenly, the electricity is gone. Things turn black, but since nothing works anymore, this fact can't be registered by the brain. There's nothing, but not even that. It's a negative nothing, where you can't think of anything because you don't exist anymore. You are gone. At least, that's the way I see it. I don't know what comes next, but I'm sure that there's a complete separation from the natural world. I think. And that's what happened to him. He was lying there, staring out of his cage, thinking about God knows what, and suddenly he couldn't see anymore. He was gone. Not the other one, the other one just went on with his life. But Digs couldn't because Digs was dead. He died with his eyes open. I stared into those eyes when I realized nothing was going on behind them. Have you ever stared into dead eyes?

Am I making a big deal out of this? No, I don't think so. I had him for two months, from July 4 to September 7. He got sick, sores spread out all over his body, and I couldn't do anything to help him. He died. He was my responsibility and he died. No, this is anything but overreacting. That night, I forced myself to think, not feel, and picked him and put him in paper towels, then in a box, and placed him on my dresser. The next day after school I dug a hole in my mother's garden, right below my upstairs bedroom windows, and buried him with a flower, a sunflower seed, and his favorite kind of chew toy. My family mocked me a little, asking me if I cried, how the memorial service went, if I buried him under my windows so that his spirit could float up and stay with us (the other one and me) in my room. I ignored them, although I did smile when Mother-dearest complained about her evil iguana's suddenly non- existent appetite. It was for Dig's sake, of course.