Goodbye Good Fish

So, we had some sadness here over the weekend. A funeral actually, the kind that I am sure all of you have had at least once, or will have at least once. I am of course talking about a fish funeral. Let's begin at the beginning, when my son was about 3 1/2 he received a fish as a gift, a gift that I would get to feed twice a day and change the filthy grimy water of while the rancid smell of fish regurgitation flowed upwards. Anyhoo, he named this creature "Jack the Fish" after himself of course, and this fish swam & ate & pooped for almost 3 yrs (quite a long time for a Beta fish I hear). So on Friday when I saw poor Jack the Fish stiff and laying on the bottom of his bowl, I knew the inevitable end had come.

I actually thought that the kids would be unfazed. I mean, they hardly ever looked at the fish, never fed it, and only occasionally would fight over who would get to scoop him out of his water bowl so I could clean it. On 2 occasions they fought so much over the little green fish net that poor Jack the Fish actually fell out onto the counter top, flopping around while the kids screamed that he was dying. But alas, he persevered, and lived quite the good life for a fish, in my opinion. But the kids were much more upset than I thought. I broke the news gently, playing up how "old" Jack was in fish years, and how good a life he had. I gave them the choice of burying him, or giving him an old-fashioned burial at sea (by sea I of course mean our toilet). They wisely chose to bury him in the yard, in a wonderfully beautiful spot between the flowers. It was a lovely ceremony, and prayers were sent up on Jack the Fish's behalf. My 6 year old son bravely shed silent tears of sadness, but my 3 1/2 yr old daughter wailed and sobbed, almost as if she were auditioning for a new t.v. series about mistreated and abandoned children. She cried for a long time, long after her brother had left the gravesite to ride his bike she sat there, crying, telling me how much she missed Jack the Fish, how good a friend he was to her. I did feel bad for her, she was genuinely upset. Poor thing, but she did get over it . . . . on Saturday she asked if we could dig up Jack the Fish and check out his dead body.

PS: I have hidden the fish bowl in the back of the closet in an attempt to make the kids forget that fish exist as pets and thwart off the next question of "When can we get another fish?"