That Sense of Being

What is this sense of being? That I am, I have been, I will be-- is it a blessing to ever feel time's razor edge, gathering its moments in my memory as a squirrel hoards its seeds and nuts for winter, food I will eat when my youth has long since melted down? Or is it a curse other animals are spared: to know that uncalled day will arrive, rudely, perhaps violently-- the one day we are bred to fear? Yet for some unshared reason I have never feared that cold day, that day of burning ice--not as a child, when I sensed it signaled a return to heaven's luxurious playground, nor as a young man when I thought dying to be no more than oblivion's mask. Now I know death is only a sleight-of-hand, a party trick of that great illusionist, Time, who is itself but a vapor, a wisp of smoke veiling eternity....