Alas, after three long years, my son's fish lost his battle to live and made his way into that land far beyond the bend in the toilet bowl. Last night as we fed him, I noticed he had lost much of his color and his breathing seemed labored. I pre-warned my son, Ben, that I thought the end was near.
Three years ago after a trip to Wally World I fell in love with a plant that had a Beta fish in a vase. My son fell in love with the fish. After many thought provoking hours thinking of the perfect name, my son came up with the ever original name "Fish" and on occasion "Fishy". After a month or so the fish lived long enough to warrant a tank of his own. While we have had a few other Beta's since his arrival he seemed to be the only one to survive the over feeding, the dirty tank, the toys accidentally or not so accidentally finding their way into his private abode.
As we went into my son's room to check on Fish's status we found him floating at the bottom of his tank. I was preparing the conversation in my head as to how to explain to my son that his fish was in fact dead and stiff as a board. Before I could even utter words of sympathy, my son said, "Mom, Fish is dead! Can I get a snake now?" (followed by his attempt at diabolical laughter). Needless to say it pretty much went downhill from there. My two sons got in a heated discussion as to who would get to push the handle on the toilet to send Fish to the Great Beyond.
Alas, sometimes some of life' lessons don't quite have the impact on our children as we often think they might. And sometimes when a small child loses the fish he had grown to love, he
is also forced to lose or let go of any dream he may have ever had of owning a snake.............. So for now, I am the Dream Crusher, the Evil Mommy who just doesn't understand how cool it would be to be the only kid in class to have a snake. Yes, perhaps those can be heavy words to some, but I know, by this time next week we will be back on the subject of Hermit Crabs and Frogs..............
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