Hiding
                             written Sophomore year
                        (a class assignment, I got a B+)
                                 by Jim Reardon

        A flicker of light released from the heart monitor was accompanied
by a short ping, letting us know my aunt was still alive.  The room was
silent; no one knew if this would be the last time her heart would beat.
Tubes were connected to her body, which was now more machine then flesh.
Lines fed a clear life sustaning substance into her blood.

        No one had expected this could have happened to our family.  After
a year or more of dialysis, my aunt had slipped into a coma, which the
doctors explained to us is not all uncommon.  Another flicker of light; then
darkness.  It was late at night and rain was coming down in sheets.  Yet
even the weather broke not the sacred darkness of the sullen room.  Another
ping followed by light; then Darkness.  The pings seemed hours apart; yet were
in actuality only seconds.  Ping.  Another year passed by and the deafening
silence drove me into madness.  I expected another ping; but finally the
Silence had taken over my aunt's body and killed her.  Seventy years were
gone.  Death had taken away my aunt and seemingly all of my memories of her.
My mother's eyes were filled with tears, but when she saw me, she casually
wiped them off.  "Don't be sad.  She's in a better place now," she told me.

        This confused me.  If she was in a better place, then why were they
crying?  I did not know of death yet; where did she go?  When would she be
back?  My two brothers and my sister, following my mother's lead, also dried
their eyes yet were still shaking with a mix of sadness and fright.  Adults
were very confusing to me then, and I didn't understand any of this.  Why
didn't they follow their own advice and not cry?  All of this crying was
too much for me and suddenly it infected me and I began to cry.  My mother
once again told me, "Don't worry.  All good people go to heaven.  And you
know your aunt was a good woman."  Her repetition was making me cry even
harder.  Confused throughts whizzed through my head.  What was this heaven
place?  Death?  I tried to stop crying, but I couldn't.  I didn't even know
why I was crying.

        A few of my cousins, aunts, and uncles came towards us, and even
they cleared off the shameful tears from their eyes.  "Don't worry," my
mother managed to spit out again.  She walked off and my uncle begain a
conversation with me.  I do not remember what he said.  I don't even think
I listened to him.  The fear and insanity of the whole situation had finally
gotten to me and I couldn't concentrate.  All energy was spent on crying as
hard as I could.  My uncle, who was very bad with children and didn't know
what to do, told me to stop but I couldn't.  No one stopped me as I wandered
off down the long corridor of the hospital.  I returned to the musty, dark
room where my aunt had "passed on."  I looked in and said the only words
that came to my mind, "Goodbye."  I went back to where my mother was standing
and she persisted in her losing battle against tears.  I did not know then
how she could fight back the unknown tears, and even now I don't think I
could have done the same.