What happened

Question
My 10 year old son is very upset. Four years ago his second grade teacher gave him two gerbils.  One of the gerbils died and two weeks later the second one died.  We took very good care of them.  They had a well balanced diet and got to exercise on the wheel in the cage. After the death of the first one we cleaned the cage really good.  Don't know what happened.

Answer
Hello Fran,
i'm sorry for your loss, but my goodness your gerbils were really old. Many gerbils only live for three years and very rarely have I know them to live for four years although with really great care and excellent genes.
You took excellent care of both and I think that the first one died of old age and the second one probably died of a combination of old age and maybe loneliness. I am so sorry that they passed away, but you did an excellent job at keeping them and I wouldn't be upset about because you kept them for an extremely long time and they lived a very long and happy life.